


The Taxxon Chronicles

by Derin



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Gen, Taxxons, taxxon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-05
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2017-12-31 14:29:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 48
Words: 56,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1032773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Derin/pseuds/Derin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(This work was written for NaNoWriMo 2013)</p>
<p>We saw Elfangor grow up in The Andalite Chronicles. We watched Toomin survive his own extinction in The Ellimist Chronicles. We saw the fall of the Hork-Bajir to the Yeerks in The Hork-Bajir Chronicles. But the promised Taxxon Chronicles were never written.</p>
<p>This is a fan work detailing the progression of Taxxon civilisation through the eyes of Sethril, an ordinary Taxxon who lived through an extraordinary part of Taxxon history.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

My name is Sethril.

I am of the Eastern Dancer Hive. And I was eight tidal cycles old when my best friend first spoke to me of betrayal.

“You know, they say the Root Spider Hive always has plenty of food,” Klesth said casually, ambling along in front of me down the narrow crop tunnel.

I paused in my own journey and pretended to inspect a part of the porous stone wall. “Is that so?”

“Yeah. I mean, it's in the very setup of the Hive.”

“The same setup that limits their population.”

“Hey, it works.”

“Tishil saw the harvest last tide cycle and said that the Root Spider Hive was almost starving.”

“You can't believe anything Tishil puts in the Hivenet. Besides, they had a mite infestation!”

“Right, like we're going to have if we don't do our jobs.” I continued alone the tunnel, forcing Klesth ahead of me to speed up. The stone around us was just luminescent enough to see my friend's bulk skittering along ahead of me. Good luminosity, especially for the beginning of lowtide season. The tunnels smelled of the acid in the waterlogged stone, and without really thinking about it, I noted the acidity. Not acidic enough, and the crops couldn't grow. Too acidic, and they'd be destroyed. Generally, the levels took care of themselves, but it was still necessary to keep note of them. If something went wrong, it would require immediate attention. Tunnel preparation prior to crop seeding was extremely important – it affected not only the quality of the crop, but the quality of the stone for future tide cycles.

“I'm just saying,” Klesth continued, “a good food level is nothing to discount.”

“Right, and we're just at the start of lowtide season. You know, when the food supplies are at their lowest. It won't be long before everyone of breeding age in every hive goes crazy, and you're picking now to...” I glanced about to make sure we were alone. We were fairly experienced at tunnel preparation by then and hadn't needed supervision for a few tide cycles, but there was always the chance that somebody could just happen to be walking by. I couldn't see or hear anyone, but nevertheless, I lowered my voice. “You choose now to talk about defection? When their food supplies will be at their lowest?”

“Is there a better time? Look, everyone wants to jump in the hive when things are going well. But what every hive really needs is extra hands to help set things up. We go now, we wouldn't be turned away.”

“But since when do... wait.” I strained to hear the slight skittering that I'd just barely detected. Most wouldn't have noticed it at all, but farmers learn to pay attention to such things. I lifted a claw to the tunnel wall and tapped firmly, listening carefully for an echo. Slightly hollow.

“Mites,” I said. I bit a small hole in the wall, revealing a long, fine tunnel within it. The tunnel was barely more than the width of my tongue, and that was no accident. I pressed my mouth to the wall and forced my tongue through the narrow hole. Pressing the sensitive appendage to the moist stone, I could detect the faint vibrations of tiny mites skittering about in their tunnels. I pushed my tongue in further, guided by those vibrations, until it hit struggling, squirming little bug bodies. They struggled, gummed down by saliva, as I kept questing.

Only when I'd explored every little tunnel in the network did I withdraw and swallow them.

“Alright, we're clear,” I said. We kept moving. “What were we talking about?”

“Economics. Politics. You know.”

“Oh, right, you mean really stupid ideas to abandon hive right before farming season. Look, Klesth, where did any of this even come from? What happened to wanting to be a legendary hunter?”

“I can be a legendary hunter and a Root Spider.”

“Yeah, but... why?”

“Sethril... do you ever think maybe we're doing this all wrong?”

“What do you mean, doing this all wrong?”

“You know. We cling on, just trying to keep our hive going another tide cycle, constantly vigilant against attack.”

“Attack?” I glanced about the peaceful, silent tunnels. “Down in the crop tunnels?”

“No, I meant the hive as a whole.”

“Well... yeah. What about it?”

“I don't know. It just seems... do you ever wonder if there's a more efficient way to use our resources?”

“More efficient than feeding and protecting our hive? Are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah, just forget it. So, um... who do you think is going to win the tunnel racing next season?”

“Tunnel racing? When have I ever cared about tunnel racing?”

“It's going to be Nesthrif again. No doubt.”

“Uh-huh.” I pretended to care while Klesth ranted on about sports and we made our way down through the crop tunnels. But I couldn't forget what Klesth had said about the Root Spider Hive.

Defection?

Since when had Klesth had any interest whatsoever in defection?

Sports, sure. Stupidly dangerous jobs like surface hunting, definitely. But never once had Klesth mentioned the Root Spider Hive to me, or to the Hivenet, except in the context of tunnel racing. And it was hard to keep thoughts out of the Hivenet. Either Klesth was expressing just another random, quickly forgotten idea, or this thought was being taken very seriously – seriously enough to conceal on purpose.

Perhaps I didn't know my best friend as well as I'd thought.


	2. Chapter 2

After we finished inspecting our sector, I headed for the Hivenet.

It takes about a quarter-crest to check a sector, and our current number of farmers had us schedules for a shift about every half-crest, so if we stayed on schedule we had plenty of free time. The farming sectors in our hive are laid out in slices that encompass the entire height of the intertidal layer where crops are planted, from where the moist stone meets the dry of the nontidal layer all the way down to the bottom of the hive and the open, acid sea. So we finished down the bottom of the hive, leaving ourselves a long climb back to the top.

Naturally, I just took the living net.

Living net channels are laid out between all the farming sectors, so it was a short trip from my final inspection tunnel to the warm, red glow of a living tunnel. The net glows about five times as brightly as the stone, and soft, welcoming red light reflected off the stone walls as I approached. The living tunnel was semi-transparent and pulsed with life, trembling in the stone. It burrowed sideways into the tunnel and out through solid stone. A shortcut.

I brushed one claw against the fleshy wall of the tunnel and it shivered. A moment later, having verified my identity, a hole simply opened in the side like a previously unnoticed mouth. I stepped inside and placed my many feet carefully, their position and pressure telling the living net where I wished to go.

The net pulsed in response, and I lifted my legs just in time to be sucked down the living tunnel at remarkable speed. Through the red walls I saw occasional tunnels in the stone cross the living tunnel before the view once again became solid rock. Occasionally, I saw other tunnels in the living net cross over mine, some with taxxons shooting through them. Moist, crop-ready stone around me became the dry stone of the upper layers, containing the hive proper. There were a few large caverns, and I caught glimpses of my hivemates working at their various chores; moving things between storerooms, digging tunnels, caring for the living net itself.

I was in a small cavern when the suction slowed, stopped. Another hole opened up and I stepped out. The cavern in question held nothing important except for several tunnels of the living net, all criss crossing through the walls. A net junction. For security reasons, we tried to avoid them, but sometimes practicality simply won out over safety.

There was one area where it never would, of course; the living net couldn't take me all the way to my destination. The Hivenet couldn't be reached by the living net simply because in the case of an invasion, the living net was a major target. While no invader, no matter how vicious and dishonourable, would intentionally attack a Hivenet, it was important to keep such things out of the crossfire.

I moved through the dry, dead stone of the hive proper, taking familiar turns without really thinking about them. The main corridors were widened to allow several taxxons to pass through them at once, except for security-related bottlenecks; this was a good thing, since I was cutting through a major passage between two storerooms and had to step aside for several labourers. I didn't recognise any of them. Most of my friends are farmers.

The tunnel twisted in a helix around a large column of black, unmineable stone, forming a single dark wall to the otherwise pale tunnel. Down in the crop tunnels, such things were only occasionally a problem, but the hive proper had a lot of such dark chunks that occasionally called for tunnel remodelling when they got in the way of expansion plans. I climbed a couple more levels, turned left, and entered the cavern of the Hivenet.

The Hivenet was high in the hive, in the largest cavern. The cavern occupied the strange area between the nontidal stone layer and the surface soil, and everybody in the hive could fit in it if they really wanted to. The floor of the cavern was flat and smooth, bare of everything except people moving back and forth. The roof was high, high enough to be without comparison in my experience. The only thing I'd ever seen higher was the one time I'd ventured out of the hive and been unable to even see a roof any more, but that didn't really count.

The roof and walls were made mostly of unstable dirt, and they were held up by the Hivenet.

The Hivenet, I knew, was formed of the roots of the Eastern Dancer Tree itself, stretching down into the earth and into our home. The roots were woven into millions of messages and trains of thought, chasing and crossing each other all across the cavern. As I watched, dozens of my hivemates moved across the Hivenet, legs clinging carefully to the weave while their manipulable claws felt the knots, read them, occasionally unravelled one or added another. Joining concepts, erasing concepts, building concepts. Each of us might have an individual mind to collect and analyse small pieces of information, but the Hivenet was where the thoughts of the hive as a whole took place.

I watched a couple of young taxxons, barely more than hatchlings with their secondary claw sets just grown in, race across the network, leaving a string of simple knots in their wake. They changed the Hivenet quickly, but their knots were easy to untie, transient, and most would be quickly erased. They circled around an older hivemate, who was thinking much more slowly, but whose knots looked much more sturdy. They would probably stay around longer. There was no hard rule, but there did seem to be a general trend in younger hivemates favouring faster, simpler, more easily mutable thoughts in the web, and older ones preferring more complex, stable ones. I'd heard some people opine that it was a symptom of older taxxons becoming more thoughtful and thorough, and younger ones not understanding the importance of time and thus not considering that their thoughts would be erased. I'd never woven with the speed or simplicity of the typical hatchling, but I thought that was age-biased acid waste. Thoughts weren't erased from the Hivenet unless they were no longer useful. Whether spoken in simple or complex weave, if a thought was useful, or profound, or helped somebody form another, it would be incorporated into the more complex thoughts of the slow weaver anyway as they encountered it and merged it with their own message. To assume that a thought was gone from the Hivenet simply because it was no longer woven in one's own hand was just vanity.

Besides, I was pretty sure that older taxxons only wove slower, more complex knots because they didn't have the physical speed or dexterity to race across the Hivenet like a drugged root spider.

I found my favourite part to weave and began to climb. The trail up was heavily coloured with my own weave; I always took the same path, so if I needed to say something on the way, that's where it ended up. There were occasional gaps where somebody had rewoven an area incorporating their own take on an issue, or undone it to weave something else, or stopped to disagree with me. I addressed a couple of the disagreements, agreed with some of the others, and rewove one or two points that I thought worth preserving as I made my way up the wall.

My own knots were familiar to me, and didn't require further inspection. But some of the other knots... well, their central messages were simple enough. That was fine. But I wasn't looking for that. I was feeling for twists of tone, of mood.

It's very hard to keep anything important out of the Hivenet. Generally, one is processing and adding information too quickly to edit one's thoughts all that thoroughly before they hit root. So things like mood often showed clearly through, even when it wasn't intentional. I could see one person's anger in a knot they'd pulled viciously tight, another's irritation in the unnecessary twists they'd put in a root before adding it. Most of the thoughts within immediate reach had been woven within the last few tide cycles, but some were older. And there were always older ones deeper down.

Sometimes, knots survived in the Hivenet long enough for the roots themselves to change shape, for bark to grow over them and make them almost impossible to undo. Sometimes, that wasn't necessary; enough roots grew over the top that there was no point in reaching back to untie some old obscure thought when one could just tie a new one over the top with new roots. Either way, the roots kept growing, and layers of old thought were buried beneath layers of new one, an immortal part of the very structure of the Hivenet. The oldest layers were no longer reachable and no longer readable, but they had strongly influenced successive layers, forming the core of Eastern Dancer Hive traditions and protocol.

I reached back to read some of the earlier layers. A lot of it was a repeat of the same banal debates that graced the surface layer – whether or not we should start regimenting breeding, debates over rations and ration changes – and some of the thoughts were fuzzy, obscured by bark, but I wasn't interested in content.

I wanted to know if I was imagining the vibe of discontent within my hive.

It was a little difficult to tell, because more than a couple of tide cycles back it became impossible to know exactly when in the tide cycle a comment had been made. Conversations during the hightide season, when food supplies are abundant and the tunnel races are run, tended to me laid-back and cheerful as a matter of course. Conversations during breeding season, when everybody was hungry and irritable, were always short and tense. If I could look at the whole web, I'd be able to guess the eras based on who was weaving the thoughts and what they were about, but there isn't enough time in a taxxon lifetime to familiarise oneself with a whole web.

I needed to try something else.

I moved a little way out of my comfort zone, to where unfamiliar hands had knotted the roots about me, and put out a simple enquiry about the resources and general amiability of the Root Spider Hive.

Hopefully, all I would need to do was wait.


	3. Chapter 3

I soon had to leave the Hivenet anyway. I had another tunnel inspection shift, this time as a supervisor.

A supervisor's job was to train young farmers in their duties; in this case, tunnel preparation. Unfortunately, nobody was there to train me how to be a supervisor. It was my first tide cycle at the job, and I was pretty sure I was going to cave it in.

I'd arranged to meet my trainees at the entrance to the sector that we were to inspect, so with some trepidation, I climbed into the living net, positioned my feet to relay where I wanted to go, and then lifted them.

I stepped out to face two fresh and entirely unfamiliar faces. I could almost be angry about being thrown to strangers like that, but to be fair, I didn't actually know any of the really young kids all that well. I myself was still several years off adulthood, but the two trainees who stood as respectfully straight as possible when I stepped out of the living net were barely a season from being hatchlings. They'd have to be, what, eighth-mature? About two tidal cycles, that seemed right. Their secondary claws were just growing in. They could fit next to each other in the tunnel.

“I'm Sethril,” I began. “And you are?”

“Wethesh, Supervisor” one said, less than a half-skip before the other said “Esheinth, supervisor.”

“Right. Well. Farming. Before we begin, you have to understand that farming is perhaps the most important job in the hive. It is on your shoulders that the health and well-being of your hivemates lies. You must be careful and vigilant in safeguarding that well-being; only with the utmost care and focus can a proper crop be maintained. This is not a job for the lazy or the easily distracted. This is a job for disciplined caretakers of the Eastern Dancer Hive.”

I sounded like a pre-prepared recruitment weave, but the trainees were practically trembling with excitement and eager to start. Perhaps supervising wasn't so hard after all.

“The stone,” I continued. “At this point, your number one concern is care of the stone. It is within here that the crop will take root and if the stone is poor, so is the crop. There are a few things to check for. The first is the health of the stone itself – the moisture content and luminescence. Healthy crop stone produces just enough light to see by. Too dim or too bright, and we may be looking at a chemical problem – such a thing needs immediate treatment.” I paused, remembering an embarrassing error from my own training. “Obviously, make sure that if you see too much light, or the wrongly coloured light, it is actually coming from the stone. Sometimes a living tunnel too close to the surface can shine through.” The trainees hissed quietly with mirth as if I'd just said something hilarious, so I pressed on before they could ask who would make such a stupid mistake. “Also check the moisture. Good stone is damp but not dripping. Now, I'm sure you can smell the acid – another warning sign of bad water content is if it is too acidic or not acidic enough. There is no way to teach the correct acid content other than sheer repetition; you will pick up a scent for it over several tide cycles. For now, you'll have to let me worry about that. The tunnel we are in now has stone that is reasonably close to ideal.”

“How hard can it be?” Wethesh asked as the pair took a moment to familiarise themselves with the luminescence and water levels of 'ideal' stone.

“As we go further down, the crop stone becomes more acidic. It also becomes a little more waterlogged, but not by any important degree. The acid levels, though, change drastically, all the way down to the ocean. It takes time to get a sense for the correct rate of change.”

“And what if the water's wrong?” Esheinth asked.

“Then we let the elders deal with it. The second thing that you need to deal with are mites. Do you know how to find mites?”

“They dig little tunnels in the walls,” Wethesh volunteered immediately.

“Indeed they do. How do you fine the tunnels?”

“By... looking?”

“By listening. As you know, during hightide season, the ocean rises to flood the whole intertidal layer – as you may not know, that's when the mites get in. The tide infuses the very stone with mite eggs and they dig within it; they almost never dig out into our tunnels. So you won't see them. You need to listen for mites. As for their tunnels...” I tapped a claw against the wall. “You will learn to hear the echoes of them, over time.

“Now, the third thing you need to check for is structural integrity. Sometimes, if the walls are weak, the tunnels cave in on each other. Obviously, we don't want that. So keep an eye on the stone around you, and check for cracks. You're still a little too small to actually fall through an unstable floor, so make sure to check the floors of the tunnels visually as well.”

The trainees suddenly backed up, as if they expected the floor beneath them to collapse.

“Um... how many of the floors are unstable?” Wethesh asked uncertainly.

“Very few of them, except right down near the bottom. And it's your job to keep it that way.” I hesitated. The sector, like all the farming sectors, started right up the top of the intertidal layer of stone, where the waters reached during hightide season, and went all the way down to where the stone met the ocean. There were special methods for caring for the stone at both ends – the top where it met the dry nontidal stone layer, and the bottom where it met the ocean. But it would be several tide cycles before the trainees needed to worry about that, and I didn't want to overwhelm them with information on the first day. So I moved them along, and we began our inspection.

The pair barely spoke as we moved through the tunnels, except to ask the occasional question or note the occasional anomaly in the stone. I didn't interrupt their focus with pointless lecturing. The two were trying hard to impress me, I could see that; they were nervous, and trying to be as focused and professional as possible. It was a little disconcerting. I was used to being treated with benevolent indulgence by my own elders, not treated like somebody who actually knew that they were doing. It was nerve-wracking.

In one tunnel, I heard a telltale flutter, and halted the pair.

“Wethesh. Esheinth. Come here.”

They did, and looked up at me expectantly.

“Tap the wall, right here, and listen.” I tapped demonstratively and heard the faint echo of a small, water-filled channel. The two copied me, but didn't seem to comprehend. After some encouragement, they backed up to tap another area of wall, and then returned. It took a few repetitions for them to hear the difference.

“That,” I said, “is a mite tunnel. You'll need to dig a bit for it.”

They took their teeth to the wall, boring a small, shallow hole. The tiny mite tunnel crossed through their hole several times; each chose a tunnel and pushed their tongues in. I waited patiently for them to clean out the entire hive before inspecting it myself.

“Good job. Only a couple of mites left. Stay this thorough and it'll be an excellent crop.”

The pair practically glowed with pride. Had I been that much in awe of some stupid half-mature when I was in training? Probably. Technically, I was still in training for a lot of the more advanced farmer's duties, and I probably looked just as nervous.

The pair became ever more nervous as we descended further. They'd probably travelled the upper half of the intertidal layer before, either swimming during hightide season or grazing during lowtide season, but not many people except farmers descended to the lower levels. The stone glowed brighter and the acid in the air started to stink. The stone around us became more and more fragile the lower we went, until finally, it cracked under the weight of Wethesh's body.

Esheinth was quick, and grabbed quickly for the suddenly descending Wethesh. I stayed back and let one trainee pull the other up.

“Good reflexes,” I said. “Always keep an eye on your partner. That's why we work in pairs.”

The two just stared at the hole where, moments ago, Wethesh had been standing. It led down into another tunnel, much like the one we were in. They looked awfully nervous over such a minor misstep. It occurred to me that they'd probably never been in a cave-in before.

“The stone won't hurt you,” I told them gently. “The ground is a little more fragile down here because the tide this low is so acidic. But if you do get buried, you can just dig yourself out. Just try not to bring down even more of the hive on top of you.”

“Why are the tunnels built so close together?” Esheinth asked, shaken. “Why not have nice thick layers of stone between them?”

I hesitated to answer – not because I didn't have an answer, but because I was trying to assess just how little information the pair must have to not be able to answer it on their own. After a moment, I instead said, “can you two think of a reason they might be built so close together?”

“Mites,” Wethesh said suddenly. “If the walls are too think, you might not be able to hear the mites.”

“That's a very good point. Thick pieces of stone let large mite nests develop, far away from our ability to detect. That would ruin the crops. Anything else?”

“To get the most moss?” Esheinth asked after several skips.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we grow the moss into the walls, and eat what grows into the tunnels. So more tunnels mean more moss to eat.”

“Very true. It also means that the moss can grow all the way through the stone, which is obviously very important.”

“It is?” Wethesh asked.

“Do you two understand what this stone is made from?”

The pair looked at me blankly.

“The stone wall beside you,” I prompted. “The white, glowing stone that makes up the intertidal and nontidal layers of the hive.”

Silence.

“It's made of moss,” I pointed out.

“Moss?”

“Look, you've seen our crop moss, yes? You've noticed the hard little strands inside the leaves?”

“Yes...”

“And you know that when the tide comes in, it kills whatever moss is left in the tunnels, and they're bare until we plant again the next season?”

“Of course...”

“Well, what do you think happens to those little hard shell-like bits?”

“They... dissolve in the acidic water?”

“Look carefully at the wall.”

Wethesh's tongue caressed the wall, and understanding dawned. “The stone is made of... of moss shells?”

“Yes. But you two were right – the tide does dissolve it. Just quite slowly. With every tide, the stone making up the intertidal layer is weakened. If it's allowed to continue, the weight of the stone itself could pull whole sections of the intertidal layer away from the hive and drop them into the ocean below. Eventually, there'd be no crop tunnels left. So, imagine we built the tunnels quite far apart, and the moss couldn't grow all the way through the stone. After several cycles of this, can you picture what the intertidal layer might look like?”

Their expression told me that they could.

“Any structural integrity gained from thick walls would be lost after a few tides. That's why the tunnel walls need to be maintained very carefully and their positions properly thought out. Do you understand? Your job isn't just about making sure there's enough food to eat. A bad harvest doesn't just hurt for one tide cycle, it weakens the stone for future cycles and makes crops harder to grow. That's why we grow crops all the way down, every year; especially down here near the ocean. They're very difficult to grow when it's this acidic, but they are necessary. Now, let's get back to work.”

Their nervousness at the near fall forgotten, the two threw themselves back into their work with renewed purpose. I was glad that they understood the importance of the duty. Soon, we were at the lowest level of the intertidal layer – for this tide cycle, anyway. The tunnel ahead of us sloped down, slowly descending into acrid water. Under the water was just darkness, the stone's light unable to shine properly through it.

The first time I'd been taken to the bottom of the hive, my supervisor had intentionally cracked the floor underneath me and dropped me into the ocean, just to show me that it was easy enough to get out. I decided not to try that on these two, and not only because it was an irresponsible destruction of structural integrity.

“You're in luck this cycle,” I said, “the water level is quite high.”

“How is that lucky?” Wethesh asked nervously.

“Well, you'll notice that the stone here is fairly fragile. But for the bottom level, it's decently sturdy, because it very rarely is the bottom level. The lower levels are much worse, and if the tide goes out incredibly low... well, how long do you think crop tunnel stone lasts when permanently in water that acidic?”

“Not long,” Wethesh said shakily.

“Right, so under the average water level during the lowtide season, there's no stone. It's all burned away. Now, if this floor cracks under you and you fall in the water, you can just climb right back out. But if the water level was lower than the stone and you fell in...”

Wethesh carefully reached out with one claw and prodded at the dark water. “You could just swim around. Until you found... some way out.”

“I wouldn't stay in that water too long. That's not the nice fresh tide water you go playing in during hightide season. I mean, you'd probably be fine for an eighth-cycle or so. But that stuff dissolves stone. Given time, what do you think it would do to a taxxon?”

Wethesh quickly backed away from the water.

“That's not to mention the predators down there. Big ones, far too big to get into our tunnels. But you go into their territory, down where there's no light to see and no tunnel walls to guide or protect you...”

I did feel a little bad for scaring them. But they had to understand. They had to know the difference between things that were scary but safe, and things that were definitely not safe. A cave-in, even into the water at this level, wouldn't hurt them – but in other lowtide seasons, things would be different, and they needed to understand that.

We finished the tunnel inspection and headed back up toward the hive proper, to the obvious relief of the trainees. They moved quickly, eager to get away from the lower levels. I moved quickly too, but for different reasons – moving at trainee pace, it had taken us nearly the entire half-crest to do the inspection, and I wanted to check the Hivenet before my next shift.

I wanted to see what the Eastern Dancer Hive thought about Root Spider.


	4. Chapter 4

I don't know what response I had been expecting, but what I got wasn't it.

The first result had been a straightforward, judgement-free answer to my question – data on the Root Spider Hive's population, food stores and breeding levels, from the last hightide season. They were a smaller hive than us, but had a lot more food per person due to their hive structure; the lower levels of our hives were separated by an extremely large, extremely thick sheet of unmineable stone that sank through the ground at an angle. This meant that while their nontidal layer was quite small, restricting their room to expand, they had a comparatively large intertidal layer (although in strict comparative terms it was a lot smaller than ours; we just had an overall bigger hive). Conversely, we had no space issues in our nontidal layer, and could spread out our storerooms and chambers as much as we wanted – but our limited space for crops limited our expansion.

The surprisingly thorough rundown of Root Spider resources branched into several minor conversations about the hive, and that's what I was really interested in. Most of the opinions seemed fairly neutral. As usual, there were a couple of hotheads insisting that we wipe the Root Spider Hive out and annex it to our own hive, that the two hives should be one; a few more seemed to very much like the Hive, with suspicious twists of nervousness in their knots. Possible defectors? Or was that just me seeing what I expected to see? Nobody on either extreme wrote in knotwork that I recognised as belonging to a friend or colleague. I definitely didn't find Klesth's hand. I knew Klesth's hand as well as my own; the two of us tended to weave in the same part of the Hivenet, and followed everything that each other wrote.

The conversation branching from the Root Spider Hive data was woven in a way that secured the knots making up the data itself more firmly. The data was an important aspect of most of the points in the conversation, after all. My original request was unimportant, and had been woven right over, the knots undone to provide peripheral points about food ratios instead. So Klesth would never see it, even following me through the Hivenet.

I felt sort of glad about that. I didn't want to look like I was making enquiries behind my best friend's back or anything.

The conversation referenced a previous trade agreement we'd had with the Root Spider Hive which was recorded too far away in the Hivenet to simply weave into the conversation, and gave coordinates. I followed them, new knots in unfamiliar weaves brushing under my claws.

The journey impressed upon me just how little of the Hivenet I normally saw.

It is in the nature of every person to focus mainly on things that they are interested in, so of course, any Hivenet develops into a strange, uneven pattern over time. The exact pattern may differ between hives, but some rules stay the same – subjects that are unrelated, and that are liked by very different kinds of people, tend to be separated a lot spatially on the 'Net. Opposing views are often quite close, because discussing one raises conversation of the other, but views that are unrelated form in large patches, without much mixing.

If I wanted to see discussions on the best prey for aboveground hunting, I wouldn't look in the same area where the elder farmers discussed acid treatment, for example. Nor would I begin my search around a tunnel racing discussion, because very few hunters followed tunnel racing. It conflicted with their schedules.

So my little tunnel of the Hivenet had a lot of people who were a lot like me, and discussed things that I was interested in. We disagreed on some of those things, so it did feel like a good cross section of ideas. But my trek across a quarter of the 'Net in search of a single record of an old trade agreement told me that that was an illusion. The Hive was full of people who didn't care about the things I cared about, and who discussed things that I considered unimportant, at length.

Somebody wanted to build a huge pillar on top of our hive to explore the roof of the cavern that encased the outer world, because nobody had ever seen it.

Somebody wanted to remove the black shards of unmineable stone that littered out hive by digging straight down underneath them and dropping them into the ocean. I added a note explaining how ridiculously unstable that would make the hive, but I needn't have bothered; the builders were already explaining.

Somebody wanted to select and ritually sacrifice chosen mothers of each new generation, in a strangely radical twist of the old 'regiment breeding' idea.

I picked through a sea of alien weaves until I started finding diplomatic records. After a quick feel around, I found what I wanted. A few tide cycles before I'd been born, the Eastern Dancer Hive and Root Spider Hive had set up a trade agreement. We traded meat for some of their crops. It hadn't lasted long, because our crop demands had turned out to be unexpectedly high, and they couldn't support them.

Well. That was a lot less useful than I'd hoped.

The trade agreement had clearly been popular at the time, though, because despite being buried two layers down in the roots, very few of the peripheral conversations about how excellent the agreement was and about how we needed to trade more had been erased. It seemed that everyone at that time had loved the Root Spider Hive. One person had thought that their opinion was important enough not to be twisted in the normal, easily-undone knots of casual conversation, but the almost impossible to untie Thiesse's Hooknot. That took dedication.

Except...

Except, I was pretty sure that Thiesse's Hooknot had been invented after I was born.

I felt at the weave more closely. For such old opinions, some of them seemed very... clear. Hardly any bark had grown over them at all. Some of them had small notches cut out of the roots to prevent slippage and make them harder to untie. Nothing strange about that – arrogant, perhaps, but not strange. Except that the notch wounds were strangely fresh, for something older than me. One or two tidal cycles, probably.

Nothing wrong with reviving an old discussion. But why weave under the current layer of thought? And why did it seem like, with a couple of stupid exceptions like the Hooknot, the weavers were trying to imitate older styles of weave?

They could be trying to have a private conversation, hide it in an obscure area that nobody else would check – but if that was the case, why make the messages harder to untie? It would make more sense to untie the messages as they were read, so that nobody else could stumble across them. The only other explanation was that they were trying to make it look like those conversations had indeed happened in the past.

Somebody was trying to doctor our history.

And for some reason, they were trying to doctor our history of political relations.


	5. Chapter 5

I tried to be quick in my inspections, planning to come back and look closer at the weaves later, but I was still late for my next shift. Klesth was waiting impatiently for me as I stepped out of the living net at the beginning of our sector, still trying to understand what I had read.

“Finally! I was about to go looking for you!”

“Yeah. Sorry.” I didn't mention that Klesth had been much later than I in the past. I was barely a hundred and twenty eighth of a crest late.

“Well, soon enough we'll be done here and we can move onto seeding,” Klesth responded with a dismissive dip of a claw as we began our slow progression down the tunnel. “And then, everyone's favourite time of the cycle.”

“Breeding season,” I sighed.

“Breeding season!” The enthusiasm in Klesth's voice was entirely sarcastic. “Where this hive turns into a dangerous pit of hungry, crazy people. What fun! I hope nobody I like dies this year.”

“If you're trying to cover up your nervousness with sarcasm, it isn't working.”

“Hah, nervous. Why would I be nervous?” Klesth spat sarcastically, before stopping to peer at me. “Hang on, why aren't you nervous?”

“I was just going to hide as much as possible, like every year.”

“Yeah, that's going to be a little hard to do on guard duty.”

Oh. That. Cold dread began collecting in my gut.

“Sethril, little mossball... did you actually forget about guard duty? Did you not realise that we are half-mature now, and that means guard duty?”

“I... may not have entirely realised that.” I stepped back awkwardly. It's pretty rare that Klesth is the one keeping up on events and needing to remind me.

“Oh, well, you'll be fantastic at it then.” Klesth continued down the tunnel and we got back to work. “'What's this pointy thing I'm holding? Why am I at the entrance to a tunnel? Oh, hi, big, angry friend... come on in!'”

Klesth's sarcastic diatribe washed over me as I tried to concentrate on my job. Tunnel health was important, but I couldn't really focus on much else apart from the simple farming taxxon ambling along in front of me who'd started talking about how great the Root Spider Hive was right as I'd found evidence of people _doctoring the Hivenet_. Of course, the knots I'd seen were a couple of tide cycles old. But who knew what was in there that wasn't? What else were they doing, and why? Who could I tell? Would reporting it in the Hivenet help, or would that just cave in some elaborate situation that I wasn't aware of? It seemed like there was a lot happening in my own hive that I wasn't aware of. What was I supposed to do? Just ignore it? Was this kind of doctoring normal, and I was just too naïve to notice?

Normally, I'd talk that sort of thing over with my best friend.

If I could trust my best friend.

Eventually, Klesth paused in the litany of thinly veiled goads and insults long enough to notice that I hadn't been biting back. “Sethril? Are you okay?”

What was I supposed to say? 'Is it some weird coincidence that you're really pro Root Spider Hive out of absolutely nowhere now'? 'Are you a victim in this whole conspiracy or a perpetrator'? 'How long have you secretly been a traitor, and are we actually friends? Do you even trust me at all? Can I trust you?'

“I'm fine,” I said.

“I made you nervous about breeding season, didn't I?”

I thought of the spooked postures of my little trainees as I explained the risks of the job to them.

“I'm not a hatchling, Klesth,” I protested. But I didn't protest too hard.

I didn't want to have to explain the truth, after all.


	6. Chapter 6

Inspection time finished and planting time began, and I showed my trainees how to take the little balls of moss so carefully preserved from the previous cycle's harvest, coat their tongues, and force the moss deep into the stone. I showed them the little tricks for finding the best planting places, how far apart they should be, and why they should concentrate on acid pockets. I explained how seeding the moss in old, now-empty mite tunnels was the best way to do it because you could get it nice and deep, but sometimes there weren't any mite nests around and there was no choice but to dig little burrows in the walls instead. I showed them how their saliva would stick the flakes of moss to the walls until it put roots in and grew through the stone itself. I lectured them against eating any of the moss, and pretended to believe that they wouldn't do it. Every tide cycle I rewove a proposal into the Hivenet to mandate an extra ration of meat for farmers right before planting so that the crop would be planted properly and the harvest would be better, and every cycle I was shot down by farmers who said that the added danger hunting aboveground outweighed the prospect of an increased crop yield. So I mostly just pretended that everyone was a good little farmer who wasn't sneaking bites of their seeder crop when nobody was looking.

We moved slowly down the sector, starting a few tunnels from the top of the intertidal layer and stopping a few tunnels above the bottom. The stone at the top and bottom of the zone needed special treatment; the top because it was too dry, the bottom because it was too acidic. The trainees were too young for those duties, and besides, they wouldn't take place until the main crop had settled in.

Until after breeding season.

I considered asking my trainees what they thought of the Root Spider Hive. But I very much doubted that they knew anything important, and I hardly wanted to confuse them. Nor did I want them to immediately go and look up the Root Spiders in the Hivenet, find anything strange, and connect it with me.

But then, wasn't that exactly what I'd done to Klesth? My friend had brought up the Root Spider Hive, and I'd found something strange, and assumed that they were responsible.

No. Klesth would have told me.

But then, I hadn't. I'd discovered something strange and told nobody. If I'd discovered it first, would I have asked Klesth poorly veiled questions and never explained myself? I didn't think I would. But then, a couple of crests ago, I wouldn't have thought I would keep a possible secret effort to edit the past of the Hivenet secret, either.

I take too much pride in my work to eat the seed crop, but handling it had certainly left me hungry. I took the living net to one of the storerooms where the hunters stored their leftover kills.

There was very little meat left in the room. A few weirdly shaped animals from aboveground were laid out, preserved as long as possible in the cool, dry air. Only one of my hivemates was in the room; a labourer that I recognised more through smell than sight. Most Eastern Dancers didn't smell like anything to me; the hive scent was just a normal background smell. But Theph stood out on the olfactory landscape like a shard of black stone jutting out of a tunnel floor. The scent had faded and, in a couple more tide cycles, would disappear completely, but for now, the scent of the Giant Foreclaw Hive was unmistakeable.

Theph was a defector.

I wanted to ask about that. About what went through one's mind, about what happened to make somebody decide to leave one hive for another. I couldn't think of anything that would make me leave the Eastern Dancer Hive. The hive was... well, it was my home. It was everything I knew.

But I really needed to know what was going through Klesth's head.

How do you start that conversation? 'Hey, can we talk about your old hive'? 'Why did you decide to join us? Is it because we dance better'? 'So, how about that defection'?

I said nothing. Theph gave me an acknowledging claw-dip, and left. As a farmer, and a farmer below maturity at that, I had special dispensation for extra food. It was in part an acknowledgement that we would be keeping the hive fed for most of the tide cycle, but it was more akin to feeding up soldiers before sending them into battle.

The breeding season would start soon.

I selected some kind of soft six-legged thing covered in bristles and tore a chunk out of it with my teeth. The flesh was soft and pulpy and didn't require cutting through a shell to get to – it naturally erupted out of the shell, covering the whole beast so that its long, tubular skeleton was actually on the inside of its body. Only a layer of outer skin (admittedly tougher than my skin) kept its meat separated from the open air. I tried not to be too revolted as I gulped down mouthfuls. I had long ago reasoned that these beasts had shells so hard that if they were on the outside, they wouldn't be able to move. The thought didn't help; it was still disgusting.

But the meat was simply meat, and I was hungry. It would sate me, for a while. I ate the whole thing; it's generally a bad idea to leave half-animals lying around. I don't mind rotting meat, but if you leave it for too long it disappears completely. What a waste that would be.

Soon, the food would run out completely. Then we could deal with, in Klesth's words, 'Everyone's favourite time of the cycle'.


	7. Chapter 7

Very little of the 'breeding season' involved actual breeding. It's only right near the end that everyone goes to the mother pit and ensures that there will be a new generation of little Eastern Dancer hatchlings. Most of the season is about ensuring the new crop properly establishes itself and avoiding large, short-tempered hivemates in the tunnels. It really should be called 'crop budding season'. Or 'terrifying season'.

Breeding adults get very grumpy, and very hungry. The first is probably a symptom of the second. Perfectly sensible people take to roving aboveground in hunting bands, and otherwise-logical farmers start to look at the crop, barely settling in, and wonder if maybe an early bite or two wouldn't hurt.

Between a few hundred taxxons and a bite or two turning into a hunger-crazed rampage, it did hurt.

Which meant that those of us who were in charge of safeguarding the crops, old enough to do so, and young enough not to turn into a single-minded hive-destroyer at the smell of food, had a very important job.

It was my first season as a crop guard, so I was paired with somebody older and more experienced. Phaleth was more than three quarters mature, which was only a few tide cycles from reaching maturity, and would soon be giving up the job altogether.

I held my spear and paced across the cavern that led into the sector we were guarding. The 'spear' was an interesting weapon, cut from the aboveground roots of the Eastern Dancer Tree that stretched up to the sky instead of down to the hive, the end sharpened to a point. It was a sacred weapon, a piece of the Eastern Dancer defending its own. Aboveground hunters had uses for them, but within the hive itself, it was useful against one thing and one thing only – the bloated flesh of a starving taxxon. Put it through a normal person, and they'd tear your head off with their teeth and go see a healer to patch the wound. But even minor wounds had extreme effects on adults when their eggs came in and their metabolisms crested.

I'd seen spears, of course. I just hadn't looked forward to wielding one.

“Your first breeding cycle at this, huh?” Phaleth asked from the proper position at the mouth of the sector access tunnel. The parts of the living net that lead into the crop tunnels had been deactivated over breeding season, so only the single access tunnel led to the delicate crops below. Our job was not to let anybody through that one entrance.

At least, that was the only official entrance. The still-settling crops had almost no energy in them yet, but the smell was still enough to drive some breeding taxxons to burrow down from the layer above and eat right through successive layers of stone in a desperate rush to sate their hunger. It was called a death burrow, the act of uncontrollably tunnelling to fill one's gut despite the work taking more energy than the stone could give in return. If left alone, they would eat themselves to death.

We couldn't afford to leave them alone. It caused too much damage to the crop tunnels. But once a death burrow began, there was only one way to stop it. So if we did feel the telltale vibrations in the wall of somebody madly burrowing in the crop tunnels, our job was to take our spears, race down the tunnel, and stop it.

I was thinking about death burrows when I realised that Phaleth had asked me a question.

“Huh? Yes. It's my first time.”

“Well, don't worry about all the rubbish they tell you before sending you down here. It's not that bad. Breeding adults are grumpy and stupid; most of the time, they're pretty easy to run off.”

In a few more of tide cycles, you'll be a breeding adult.”

“And I'll be grumpy and stupid, and you'll be able to run me off.”

“Have you ever... you know...” I indicated my spear.

“Let anyone past? Nope. Not ever.”

“I meant, have you ever killed anyone?”

“No, I haven't.”

I relaxed a little. “Oh. Good.”

“Don't worry, it's quite – oh, here we go. Block the tunnel and try not to look nervous.”

I could hear the feet approaching, too. I filled the entrance tunnel with my bulk as instructed, just as two adults sauntered in. I didn't recognise either of them, but my guarding partner did.

“Hi, Thisesh,” Phaleth said casually, spear held non-threateningly but high enough to employ if necessary. “Are you lost?”

“Just out for a casual stroll,” one of the adults said, presumably Thisesh. It sounded casual, but I could feel the ring of eyes on me, seeking the tunnel behind me. “I see you got a new partner.”

“It happens.”

Thisesh moved closer. “Young, though. You'd be what, third-mature?”

“Half-mature,” I grumbled. I knew I shouldn't let it get to me, but did I look four tide cycles old? Really? Remembering the spear in my primary claws, I lifted it like a ward.

“Sure you are, hatchling.”

“I'm sure you two have important business to attend to,” Phaleth said firmly, getting between me and the adults. “We wouldn't want to keep you.”

“Ah, we're not that busy...”

“Well, we are.”

For one long, tense moment, Phaleth and Thisesh watched each other, both tensed as if ready to lock teeth. Then Thisesh turned.

“Yeah, you children have fun with your little tunnel there. We'll try not to disturb you, since you're so incredibly busy.”

Only after the adults were out of sight did the tension drain from Phaleth's body. “See what I mean? Nothing to it.”


	8. Chapter 8

Most of guard duty turned out to be pretty boring. Our numbers were few and there was little other work to do, so the shifts were extremely long – a full crest guarding, then a sixteenth-crest break while a rotating fill-in shift took our place. I spent most of my break time on the Hivenet, but most of the current conversation was quite short-tempered adults snapping at each other. Many of them had been driven to the surface to hunt, even those who normally stayed in the hive. I'd only ever been aboveground once, and witnessed that yawning expense of space with no visible roof stretching high above the Eastern Dancer Tree. I hadn't liked it. Aboveground was very dangerous; without the protection of tunnel walls, we were vulnerable. There were beasts aboveground that would drop from above and grab unwary taxxons, beasts that would erupt from the soil... and of course just normal ground-walking beasts, that you could see coming but had no chance to outrun. I never understood what kind of force could make somebody go up there voluntarily looking for a fight.

Hunger, apparently.

Phaleth and I spent most of our guarding time playing Rolling Primes. It was one of many games that the hatchlings in the Eastern Dancer Hive enjoyed, where the players would list prime numbers in sequence but have to skip certain ones based on a formula decided by one player. The goal was to figure out the formula before making too many mistakes and then rack up points via listing; since the formula could relate to either the actual prime numbers or their place in the sequence, the possibilities were endless. Of course, it was only really appropriate for hatchlings, because once you figured out the formula it was just a matter of listing primes, but Phaleth had a way of making tricky formulae that seemed to masquerade as simple ones. I kept thinking I'd locked the formula down and then being surprised ten primes later when I slipped up on a high scorer because the formula was actually a much more intricate one with identical results in the lower numbers.

Our shifts of hatchling games were only occasionally broken up by tense confrontations with adults drawn to the smell of budding crops. Most of them I didn't recognise, but some I did.

Sheeyeth, for example, was a hunter who I knew casually, and one day came ambling into our cavern with two fellow hunters that I didn't recognise.

“Can we help you?” Phaleth asked, spear in hand and ready to raise. We both stood blocking the tunnel entrance. If the hunters wanted to get to the crops, they needed to go through us.

That was not a comforting thought.

“Yeah. We're a little lost,” one of the hunters said.

“There's a living net tunnel a little way behind you. I'm sure it'll take you anywhere you want to go.”

“Not anywhere we want to go,” Sheeyeth said, moving closer. As one, we guards raised our spears.

I did not want to fight hunters. Well, I didn't want to fight anyone. But I especially didn't want to fight hunters. If these people hunted with Sheeyeth, then they didn't just dip into the intertidal layer during hightide season to pull out their prey; they moved aboveground and lived on the edge of their wits and their luck. My little spear didn't seem to matter much against that.

“Perhaps you should go back there and find out,” Phaleth said firmly.

“No,” the hunter that hadn't spoken yet said. “No, I think we're going in the right direction.”

“I think perhaps you should step back,” Phaleth said calmly. Phaleth and Sheeyeth eyed each other for a long moment. Then, Sheeyeth did step back.

Making room for another of the hunters to charge.

A ring of teeth flew towards me! I immediately dodged sideways. Which was, of course, about the stupidest thing I could've done; I wasn't the target, the tunnel I guarded was. It was getting very close to breeding time, and the crop was fresh and coated about half the tunnel. The point of the charge was to scare us out of the way so that the hunter could barrel past us.

Phaleth, who had rather more experience than I did, didn't dodge out of the way. Phaleth stayed planted firmly in the tunnel entrance and raised the spear. With a practised flick of the simple weapon, the hunter was missing most of an eye. The hunter pulled back, hissing.

“You don't want to try that again,” Phaleth said, staying put despite the obvious agitation of the three hunters. The hunter apparently did want to try that again. The second charge was faster; and this time, I was sure, they'd be ready for that spear. The hunter's teeth flew for Phaleth's, ready to lock. And if they did, Phaleth would be defenceless against the other hunters.

The hunter was ready for Phaleth's spear. But everybody seemed to have forgotten about me.

I raised my weapon and jabbed outwards towards the bulk racing past. I pierced soft flesh and tore a hole through the hunter's side as they raced past. It was a perfectly survivable wound, but still disgusting; guts spilled out of the hole and the room was filled with the stench of blood.

The other hunters reacted immediately.

I didn't think; I just got out of the way for their charge. It was a good thing I did, because they descended on their friend like prey. It didn't matter that the wounded hunter was a taxxon, was a hivemate, was a hunting partner; they tore into the... well, the meat. We were all made of meat, I realised dimly. And the line between edible and inedible... was apparently just a factor of hunger.

They ripped the hunter apart in much the same way that I'd ripped meat apart in the storeroom, but with more speed, with more desperation. I'd never seen anybody eat anything with that kind of desperation. Pieces of taxxon were simply torn off and swallowed, and – ugh – the wounded hunter, even while screeching in agony, seemed to be trying to twist to join in the feast.

Soon, there was nothing but a smear of blood leaking into the porous stone.

The two remaining hunters turned to look at me. I was covered in blood, I realised.

“It's time to leave,” Phaleth said firmly, spear raised. I raised my own. Sheeyeth watched me. Seemed to consider.

Turned away.

I wanted to run through the crop tunnels myself; not to eat them, but to get down to the ocean, to dive in and let the acid water clean the blood away. I wanted to find something to wash the memories away. I wanted to be anywhere but in that cavern. But the crops still needed protecting. I still had a job to do. I couldn't leave.

“I never want to eat meat again,” I said hollowly.

“Your first time, right?” Phaleth said gently.

“Yeah.”

“I'm really sorry about that. I should've warned you that that can sometimes happen. I just didn't want to scare you over what could've been nothing.”

“I thought... I thought you said you'd never killed anyone.”

“I haven't. And neither have you. Not here, anyway; I don't know what the rest of your life is like. But you did good today. You saved my life, and we saved the crop. It was the other hunters who killed today. Not you.”

“They just... the hunter was alive nearly the whole time, they...”

“I know.”

“They acted like they were hunting prey or something...”

“I told you; adults. Grumpy and stupid.”

“That was a little beyond 'grumpy'.”

“Crazy and stupid, then. Don't worry. Not long to go now before we can release this crop and everybody can act sensible again.”


	9. Chapter 9

The breeding took place. I wasn't there, of course; I had a tunnel to guard. But soon after, the crop was ready for the first harvest, and we were able to allow access to some of the tunnels.

Crop grazing is actually quite a complicated process. The moss will grow to fill the tunnel if left alone, but the first crop is normally low-quality and of limited use, and once the tunnels are too packed, it would stop growing. Once they were eaten clear, a second crop could grow, stronger and more nutritious than the first; but if the tunnels were grazed too soon, the crop could become unstable. Ideally we wanted three crops in any given lowtide season. The first two could be eaten directly by the hive, and the third, high-energy crop was harvested to feed the hive throughout the hightide season. The third crop also had the strongest shells, so its growth was important for the health of the stone.

To achieve good growth, the grazing needed to be carefully timed. Fortunately, figuring that out wasn't my problem; it was the elder farmers who wove the grazing schedules into the Hivenet, and we younger farmers just had to make sure that they were followed. Once everybody had eaten their fill after breeding and calmed down,the role of guard became more of a guide, directing hivemates away from growing areas and to edible areas. Adults could rejoin the workforce, reducing the shifts for the rest of us. Angry, confrontational arguments began to disappear from the Hivenet, their roots untangled to weave into new conversations. Life in the hive returned to normal.

I sought out Sheeyeth after the breeding season. I wasn't entirely sure why. I guess I just wanted to, well, see if anything had changed. I'd watched Sheeyeth tear a friend apart and eat them alive. You didn't forget something like that.

Sheeyeth, apparently, did, because the topic didn't come up at all. Nor did the hunter look particularly awkward or nervous when we spoke. I took advantage of the situation to request that the hunters get some aboveground materials for us. Hunters never read the farmer-specific parts of the Hivenet, so it was easiest to just find one in person and tell them what we wanted.

“Surface water, huh? It's that time of the cycle again?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you guys even do with this stuff?”

“It's... kind of complicated.”

“Alright. How much do you need?”

I recited the numbers, which Sheeyeth acknowledged with a claw wave. “Make sure it's freshwater,” I added. “It has to be – ”

“I know, Sethril, I've been doing this longer than you have. Don't fret. We'll get you your water.”

In actual fact, we needed the water to make repairs.

Repairwork involved growing moss outside the carefully restricted crop tunnels, so it was impossible to achieve until breeding season because it would be impossible to protect. But there were three important areas of stone that needed to be treated every tidal cycle. The first and simplest was simply a matter of filling in any tunnels and repairing any walls of stone that the builders directed us to. The tunnel support in the upper dirt layers of the hive was a matter for the builders themselves to worry about, but replacing or strengthening stone was our area of expertise. The second area was where the intertidal and nontidal stone layers met. There was an area reached by the tide that wasn't wet enough to grow crops normally, but that was still eaten away by the acidic water. If ignored, it would eventually result in a very weak band of stone between the two layers, which could be dangerous. The third area in need of treatment was the lower levels of the intertidal layer, where the stone met the ocean. It was too acidic for fungus to grow down there normally and took special effort to maintain.

All three of the areas were treated in the same manner – clean surface water was mixed with ocean water to the optimal acidity and the stone infused with it. Then moss could be grown inside normally. The non-farmers knew to leave these areas alone; they were farmed and grazed for stone strength, not food quality.

The ever-difficult bottom layer was the purview of elder farmers, but the border between the two layers of stone was partly my duty. And because I was already trained in it, I didn't need to be paired with somebody more senior. Which meant that I could work shifts with my friend.

I'd barely seen Klesth at all during the harrowing breeding season, but the somewhat scatterbrained exuberance hadn't changed.

“I think I want to be a tunnel racer,” Klesth said by way of greeting.

“A tunnel racer? I thought you were going to be a successful hunter?”

“I can be both!”

“No you can't. Hightide season is prime hunting time. How can you hunt if you're training and travelling between competitions?”

“... Okay, well, I can fall back on hunting if I'm a total cave-in at tunnel racing.”

“What's wrong with just being a farmer?” I asked in irritation as I stopped to inspect a wall. The tide had stopped a little lower than average the previous hightide; that was good. Variation was good. It gave us a chance to boost the strength of stone that was normally covered but, this cycle, pared the acid damage.

“Nothing's wrong with just being a farmer. I just want to be a tunnel racer.”

“Yeah, well, you just want to be everything.” I hadn't forgotten Klesth's comments about the Root Spider Hive earlier in the season. I was sort of hoping it was just another random, fleeting impulse, but after the normal high-temper arguments of the breeding season had died down, I started keeping tabs on the 'older' layers of conversation in the Hivenet, under the current surface thoughts. I wasn't imagining it. People were changing them.

I hadn't recognised Klesth's weaving in them, but I couldn't help but be suspicious.

“I don't... what's in your teeth?”

“Nothing. I'm fine. I just... you say a lot of random things. Sorry. I guess I'm not over the breeding season yet.”

“Oh, yeah. That was an experience. Not one I'm looking forward to repeating.” Klesth paused to taste the acidity of a recently treated wall, long tongue worming across the rough surface. “I bet the Root Spider Hive doesn't have this kind of trouble. More compact crop space.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Just saying, breeding season would be less stressful if – ”

“Still with the Root Spider Hive?!”

“What's wrong with Root Spider?”

“Nothing's wrong with them! They seem fine. It's just... you're talking about defection again, aren't you?”

“It was just a thought.”

“You can't just casually decide to do things like that!”

Klesth blinked at me. “Why not?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why can't I just casually decide to defect? Plenty of people defect. Why can't I just decide to join a new hive?”

“Well, you can, but... why?”

“Why not?”

“What do you mean, 'why not'?!” You do need a good reason to leave your home! Why isn't Eastern Dancer good enough for you? Did we do something to offend you?”

“No. But should it make a difference, what hive we belong to? I can go to Root Spider, you can go to Root Spider. Or we can go to Tallshard. Or stay here. But why does the mere discussion make you so nervous?”

“I'm not nervous!” I snapped, skittering nervously. “It's just... look, how many defectors do you know in this hive?”

“I don't know. Three? Four?”

“Right. And are any of them champion tunnel racers?”

“Labourers, I think.”

“And you don't think it's strange that we only seem to get labourers defecting? Because I think that's strange. You know what I think happens, Klesth? I think that if you move from one hive to another, nobody trusts you. They will eventually, but not for a long time. I think they give newcomers jobs where they can't do any harm, jobs where they can be shut away. None of our defectors are war captives, Klesth. They all came here voluntarily and there's no reason not to trust them. Theph is a really great person, but a really great person who's been carting goods between storerooms for four tide cycles. Do you know what Theph did in the Giant Foreclaw Hive? Because I don't. And maybe after awhile, when the scent of Giant Foreclaw goes away, opportunities will open up, and we'll learn. But if you defect to Root Spider, you're not going to be the tunnel racer you've suddenly decided to dream of being. The Root Spider Hive won't take you anywhere because they won't want their champion to smell like Eastern Dancer. They'll shut you off in some storeroom and treat you like a war captive or a spy. So if you really want to defect, I hope you have a better reason than 'I think they have more food sometimes'.”

Klesth didn't interrupt my rant at all, but when I was finished, just said calmly, “And you think that's okay?”

“Huh?”

“You think it's okay to treat hivemates like that, just because they were born in a different hive?”

“No, of course not. But that's how it is.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

“You don't think it's right. Does anybody think it's right? And if not... why does it happen?”

“Because defectors can be spies, obviously!”

“Seems like a bit of a waste, doesn't it? Having potential enemies. Ever notice how many guards we have? How many concessions we make for security? How much is wasted protecting us from those who would be our hivemates if they were born in a slightly different place?”

“It's hardly a waste if it works.”

“But they're doing the same thing to protect themselves from us. If nobody needed to protect their stores – ”

“Then the first hive not to would be raided by everyone else.”

“You don't think other hives would refrain from such a thing, in pursuit of a common goal of reducing that kind of waste?” Klesth looked serene and focused. What had happened to my impulse-driven trouble magnet of a friend?

“No, I don't, because they know the other hives wouldn't. How did we even get on this topic?” I asked. “We have work to do.”

“So we do,” Klesth replied.


	10. Chapter 10

Harvest season approached quickly, and before we knew it we were forming lines to ball up the crop into little moss balls and sending them to storage. There were three categories, and where each ball went depended on the quality of the moss and the needs of the hive – the general storage for food stock, the carefully protected seeder balls for the next tidal cycle, and the hatching balls. Once the eggs were mature enough to be removed from the mother pit, they'd be balled up in moss to give the hatchlings a nutritional boost when they devoured their egg casings. It wasn't strictly necessary, but it gave them a growth boost and resulted in a healthier population.

The tunnel that I was directing the trainees through was for harvesting these hatching balls.

“The consistency is important,” I explained as I rolled the fungus tightly between my many claws. Their own barely grown in claws were almost not up to the task, but they burrowed through. “You want nice, tight balls, but not so tight that the moss will crumble when opened up for an egg. And no eating!” I snapped as Esheinth eyed the moss. “If you're hungry, you eat before your shift.”

The balls were passed on to labourers queued behind us, who would take them via the living net to the correct storerooms. I wasn't even sure I knew where they were kept. My only interest in storage was where my food was; the rest wasn't my problem.

We had to work fast to beat the tide. Harvest is generally left for as long as possible to ensure the correct crop quality, so even with every farmer enlisted to harvest, we raced with the rising waters at our feet. As always, we barely cleared the tunnels before hightide season began. And as always, the change of season brought changes to the Hivenet, as the previously busy farmers had more free time and the previously idle explorers and water hunters got to work.

And, of course, the topic of every fourth weave or so was tunnel racing.

The tunnels were cleaned and smoothed by enthusiastic builders wanting to make an impression on visiting racers. Excitement was twisted into every related conversation, from discussions on rationing victory feasts to planning dancer training. A third or so of the hive was invested in the actual results of the races, but for the rest of us, it was a chance to show off our prosperity to the other hives. And we intended to take full advantage of it.

For some reason, in the Eastern Dancer Hive there's always been a lot of crossover between living net tenders and dancers. Nearly half of our living net tenders were involved in the dance displays for the tunnel racing, which left the living net itself short-staffed at a critical time while they trained. Naturally, the deficit was filled with other workers whose duties were lessened by the hightide season. Hightide was a high-activity season for hunting, to add variety to our food resources for feasts, and for security, since so many foreign taxxons would be moving through the hive. Builders and labourers had a lot of work ahead of them, keeping the hive in perfect condition to leave a good impression on the visitors. In fact, the only major sector of the workforce not in desperate need during hightide season was farmers.

Which was how I always ended up spending the first part of hightide season scheduled to the living net. Or more accurately, the mother pit.

I climbed into the living net and positioned my feet to request the mother pit as a destination. It took much longer to send me on my way than normal. The mother pit was the most vulnerable area in the entire hive; it needed to be extremely well-guarded and there were a lot of additional security protocols to go through. I waited while the living net verified my identity in dozens of ways and then, finally, permitted me to travel.

I lifted my legs, and was sucked swiftly down the living tunnel.

Care of the living net is, I am told, quite complex, and far out of the realm of my own expertise. Supplementary claws like myself were usually assigned simple tasks that didn't require much training when we had to help out in the living net. But just because they were simple didn't mean they weren't important. My task was vital to the very survival of the next generation.

I was whisked through stone and caverns, pulled around twists and across major tunnels. The living tunnel bent in a wide arc around the Hivenet, keeping far enough away from it to avoid easy access from the living net alone. I had never actually studied the layout of the living net, although I knew where in the Hivenet the information was woven. The distribution patterns of the living tunnels were of no more concern to me than a living net carer would care about the patterns of crop tunnels, and the two were informed by very different problems and needs.

As I travelled, I saw other passing living tunnels with more frequency. I passed through one minor tunnel nexus, another. But my destination was no minor nexus.

My destination was the core of the living net itself.

The cavern that housed the mother pit was only a little smaller than the cavern that housed the Hivenet itself. Unlike the Hivenet, though, the roof was bare stone, and it was on the ground that the important structure sat.

A vast, pulsing pile of living net flesh formed a huge pocket; a cavern within a cavern. Dozens of living tunnels radiated from it in every direction like huge, fleshy tendrils on an ocean predator. The living tunnels, including mine, were attached quite high up the vast flesh pocket, and I was deposited on a ledge high inside.

Below me stretched several white, moist, filmy membranes, just transparent enough to see through. Below them was the rubbery floor of the living chamber, an almost perfectly round disk with high, rubbery walls. This pit was entirely full of round, gelatinous taxxon eggs, kept moist under the membranes.

The mother pit.

I descended slowly towards the eggs, the walls of the chamber shivering at my touch. The living net twisted itself to allow me down next to the eggs, and I poised carefully on the side of the pit. The eggs covered the entire pit floor; the ones in the middle the largest, the ones on the outside smaller. Only about half the eggs had the little grey dots suspended inside that would turn into taxxons. As usual, the larger the eggs and more central in the chamber, the higher the success rate.

The mother pit was a little warmer than the air outside; the living net regulated its temperature very carefully and with it, the temperature of the eggs. The mother pit kept the eggs moist and they absorbed the nutrients needed to grow from fluids secreted by the pit bottom. It was theoretically possible to grow eggs outside a mother pit, but I'd only ever heard of it happening in legend; I'd never seen it succeed myself. We tended the living hive and fed it with our waste; it moved us about the hive and nurtured our young.

The crops we planted in the stone fed us and built our home, but our relationship with the moss crops was one of domestication. Our relationship with the living net was one of symbiosis.

I always found the mother pit extremely unnerving.

My job was to check the health of the eggs; specifically, to check for fungal infection. If the pale, semi-transparent eggs contained greyish, filmy deposits inside them or on their surface, they would need to be eliminated before the rot spread.

I began my inspection by simply doing a circuit around the mother pit, balancing easily on the rubbery edge and inspecting as many eggs as I could see clearly as I passed. But the pit was much too large to see all the way across in that manner, so eventually, reluctantly, I had to climb in.

I ducked carefully under the membranes, touching as little as possible, and edged my way forward, placing my legs carefully between the eggs. Occasionally I had to nudge one gently aside, but it was best not to touch them at all. I made my careful way through the hive in a spiral pattern, making sure to check every egg.

No signs of infection. It would be a good year.

I carefully climbed out of the mother pit and brushed a claw to the wall to request an exit. A gap opened, just barely enough to climb through; the walls brushed me as I squeezed through, like a farewell caress.


	11. Chapter 11

Once my shift in the mother pit ended, I took advantage of the high tide to go for a swim.

Of course, everybody in the hive with a spare fraction of time was doing the same thing, heading down to the newly flooded intertidal layer to get off their feet for a bit. The crop tunnels would be too packed with taxxons to get decent speed. But I knew those tunnels like I knew my own weave. We farmers had the advantage.

I knew that the long, broad runs would be full of practicing tunnel racers. Not a good spot for a casual swim. I knew that the hairpin tunnels, especially in the lower half of the layer, tended to attract prey, and that's where the water hunters would congregate. And the very young, the quarter-mature farmers and pretty much all the immature non-farmers who weren't hunting or racing, would stay in the upper tunnels, where it was safer and the water was less caustic.

So I needed an area with too many twists for high-speed tunnel racing, that wasn't attractive to water hunters, and was too obscure for most people to know about.

That was no problem at all.

I walked down a sector access tunnel toward the water. The tide water was as dark as the ocean below – the glow of the stone couldn't penetrate it – but it was much fresher, especially at the top. I pushed water from my fluid reservoir into my lungs, forcing the air from them, and dove forward. The water bouyed me up, and I lifted my legs.

Swimming in a tunnel is about the freest form of movement there is. If has all the speed and effortlessness of travelling through the living net, but with the ability to simply change direction, speed or destination at will. I drained the fluid in my lungs back into its reservoir, drawing in a lungful of water to replace it. As I moved, tiny ripples and microcurrents bounced off the stone around me and pressed against my sensitive flesh, telling me where obstacles were.

I swam easily down the tunnel and headed for my destination, memory telling me where the turns wee before the water on my skin did. Microcurrents bounced off something ahead of me; too soft and small to be a taxxon, and moving. I was in luck! I opened my mouth wide and gulped down the prey as I swept through the tunnel. I was so focused on the unexpected meal that I almost forgot to slow down in time to take a hairpin turn; I frantically wriggled against the water to avoid slamming into the wall. Taxxons are one of the fastest things in an underwater tunnel, but compared to a lot of our prey, our maneuvrability isn't all that great. Fortunately, in the confines of the tunnel, there's nowhere for the prey to go – and if they want to come up and feast on the remains of the crops before they dissolve, they have no choice but to take the risk.

My chosen swimming location was one of the few parts of the intertidal layer heavily littered with shards of black stone. It left the corridors irregular as we built around it, making it a place where those going for high speed or those unfamiliar with the environment wanted to avoid. But it was a favourite of farmers, because we already knew the turns so well that the irregularity simply didn't matter. A couple of my hivemates were making slow, lazy circuits through the area when I arrived. I sent out some greeting ripples, and felt their greeting in return. Formalities over with, we proceeded to ignore each other completely as we swept effortlessly through our domain.

Hightide season was the one time that the intertidal layer belonged to all taxxons in the hive. But still, somehow, it felt like ours.


	12. Chapter 12

Of course, I wasn't able to spend all my free time just swimming by myself. Eventually, Klesth found me.

“You have to help me train.”

I backed up. “Train? For what?”

“For tunnel racing, of course.”

“You still want to do that?”

“What, you thought I'd just change my mind?”

“Actually... yes.”

“Come on. We have to get down to the good tunnels.”

And that's how I ended up spending the first half of the season timing Klesth moving down long tunnels very, very fast.

It didn't seem to matter that I knew nothing about tunnel racing and even less about training racers. Eventually, I learned that Phaleth, my guarding partner the previous lowtide season, was a fan of tunnel racing, so by introducing the pair to each other I was able to get out of the occasional training session. Klesth wouldn't be ready to race that season, of course; it took at least a few tide cycles to train even an amateur racer.

When our star racers left to tour the nearby hives, Klesth became even more enthusiastic. The sudden drop in racers left the tunnels free for even more training. I got out of as many training sessions as I could, and spent my time in the Hivenet instead.

I hadn't noticed any more new messages masquerading as old, but the Hivenet was a big place. If somebody was making an effort not to be detected, it was very unlikely that I'd find all their work. I still hadn't raised my concerns. I still didn't know what the weavers were trying to accomplish, or why, or if they were still doing it. It had crossed my mind that it might be a spy, and I chased up all the recent Root Spider defectors in the hive to familiarise myself with their weaves. None of them were the same as the weave in the doctored messages. It's very difficult to disguise one's own hand in the weave.

Difficult, but not impossible.

Most of the fresh thoughts in the Hivenet were still about preparations for the races. The Root Spider Hive was the hive closest to us, so we would be hosting their racers first, followed by Tallshard, Giant Foreclaw, and finally Eastern Moss. I was looking forward to it.

I wasn't all that interested in tunnel racing, but I was very interested in visitors from the Root Spider Hive.


	13. Chapter 13

Our Root Spider guests were announced by the guards as soon as they were in sight, and tunnel racing enthusiasts skittered to pack the upper levels of the hive and welcome them. There were thirteen in all, including the five racers, six guards, and two 'attendants' of officially general purpose but that everybody knew were actually there to gather information on our hive for Root Spider records. The event was officially about the racers, but the showing off was for the attendants.

We heralded their arrival with a celebratory feast, pulling the highest quality moss and meat out of storage. Naturally, everybody ate as much as possible. The feast lasted quite a long time, because there was no one part of the hive large enough to fit the entire population of the Eastern Dancer Hive inside, but somebody on the planning committee had had the bright idea of putting it in the largest free chamber we had anyway, apparently just to show off to the Root Spiders both how much space we had and, based on the length of time the event took anyway, how high our population was. Several of the guests had been to our hive more than once, and friends from previous visits reestablished their acquaintance and entertained each other with stories as they ate. The dancers worked in shifts, each group putting on high-quality acts in what was probably their most sustained effort of the cycle. Some of the performances were over an eight-crest long and the feast itself took nearly three crests. Somewhere along the line the Hivenet seemed to get the impression that the Eastern Dancer Hive should excel at dancing, probably due to the name alone, and the dancers didn't let us down. The core dancers were the same every tide cycle – a rendition of the establishment of the hive, a complicated quickstep number outlining the story of a young taxxon achieving their dream of becoming the hive's greatest tunnel racer, and a dramatic retelling of hunters bringing down a giant beast on the surface.

My favourite kind of dancing is known as weave dancing. It's often dismissed as simplistic by those who prefer the intricate footwork of the quickstep or the subtle claw movements of story-signing, but I'd watched the weave dancers practice and their work was anything but simple. A weave dance involved between two and sixteen taxxons (our group had eight) moving in rhythmic steps over and around each other. The hand and foot movements were indeed slow and exaggerated, intended only to convey mood, pacing and very simple concepts, but that wasn't to make things easy on the dancers – it was so that the viewers could concentrate on the overall pattern.

Weave dancers didn't just tell a story with their hands, feet, and general body motion. Each took the part of the end of a piece of root and moved about each other as if the story they were telling was being woven into the Hivenet. Because the languages of rhythm, dance movement and Hivenet weave were all different, a weave dance involved telling the same story simultaneously in three very different ways, each revealing slightly different facets. Because there was no actual root to weave and one had to garner the knots from the motion of the dancers, every viewer noticed different things and picked up a slightly different telling. For the same reasons, it was impossible to understand a weave dance story by viewing it only once. They were generally short pieces involving simple knots, reproduced five or six times.

Our weave dancers had produced a sixteenth-crest long piece – the time it took me to inspect a quarter of a sector of tunnels – and were repeating it thirteen times. The sheer stamina alone was impressive, let alone the actual weave dance.

I stayed to watch, of course. As a farmer, I was one of the few in the hive who had that kind of time during hightide season. It was the second repetition, and I was just learning that the hero of the story was a young builder, when somebody smelling sharply of the Root Spider Hive came to stand next to me.

“Good form in the twists there,” the newcomer commented, “especially in the young one.”

“That's Atheph,” I noted. “Only been dancing for two tide cycles.”

“Really? Impressive. I take it you are a dance enthusiast, then?”

“Ah, no, not really. But if I had to pick a favourite type of dance, it would be weave dancing.”

“I'm Ssentris.”

“Sethril,” I replied in kind. “You are with the Root Spider contingent, I assume?”

“Of course. I'm an attendant. Pleased to meet you, Sethril.”

“Likewise. So, uh... who do you think will win the tunnel races?”

“I don't know, and I care even less.”

I turned to look at Ssentris in surprise, missing several twists in the knot the weave dancers were outlining. “You're a tunnel racing attendant.”

“Yes, but I did not sign up out of enthusiasm for the sport itself. You see the racer with the crooked fifth-tooth? Elshen. My best friend. I'm just here to keep the brat out of trouble.”

“Believe me, I know what that feels like.”

“So, how is the Eastern Dancer Hive doing this cycle? A couple of the major corridors have shifted, I noticed.”

So I was being tunnelled for information. Some third-elder attendant strolling over to engage a half-mature in casual conversation? Of course I was. At least Ssentris wasn't insulting me by trying very hard to pretend otherwise.

“I'm given to understand the old corridor interrupted airflow in one of the expansions,” I said carefully. “But you'd need to talk to a builder about that. I'm just a farmer.”

“A farmer, huh?” Ssentris said in the tone of one who had just found something extremely valuable by complete accident and was trying to sound casual about it. “You must be happy that the hightide season has hit, then.”

“Everybody likes the hightide season,” I said vaguely.

“Yeah, but it's a chance for you guys especially to relax. I mean, you must've been working pretty hard this harvest, huh?”

Ssentris' clumsy interrogation was starting to sound a little offensive. I'd had enough. In a slow, clear voice, I rattled off our planting, growth and intake statistics, keeping my tone as flat as possible. The Root Spider Hive wanted our numbers? They could have them. I wasn't playing games.

“Uh, right.” Ssentris apparently lived in a world of subtlety, and wasn't used to somebody directly calling them out as I had. I waited while the Root Spider attendant tried to decide just how to carry the conversation from there. I'd stopped paying attention to the dance and watched while Ssentris scrabbled awkwardly, said a polite goodbye, and left.

Normally, we were supposed to glean information from each other through delicate conversation, but I was no diplomat and had no intention of acting like one. If Ssentris thought it was a good idea to approach random children to get more direct information, then Ssentris was going to get direct information.

I wasn't playing thought games with Root Spiders.

I wasn't playing thought games with anyone.


	14. Chapter 14

The Root Spiders raced, setting a couple of new time records that I didn't bother to memorise, there was further intermingling and feasting, and then they left. We barely had time to prepare for the Tallshard Hive before they arrived. Tallshard had a larger hive than we did and sent a larger delegation than the Root Spiders had, but their hive was in low-quality stone with more unmineable pockets than ours, so the feasts were moved to rooms that required long marches down perfect, sweeping corridors. They raced the same tunnels that the Root Spiders had, beat their records, and had the results duly recorded in the Hivenet. None of the hives would beat the Eastern Dancer records for those tunnels, the same as we could not expect our tunnel racers to beat the local records of any of the hives they visited. There was simply too much advantage in racing in the tunnels that one trained in. But home records didn't really “count” in the competition – it was a way for each hive to show that they were better than the other non-local hives. Our job wasn't to beat, for example, the Root Spider Hive in their own hive – it was to beat them everywhere else. And they would try to do the same thing to us. Every hive would.

Klesth and the other child racers used as much of the time between visits as possible to train, since the tunnels were almost permanently in use by the visiting racers when they were present. Shortly after we bid farewell to the last racing contingent, the cycle's batch of hatchlings were born. Eighty-seven little taxxons made it out of their eggs, which was a little more than average; we planned the next cycle's planting schedule accordingly.

The water levels dropped, and we farmers began work again. My trainees required much less supervision on their second tidal cycle of being farmers. They were still a few cycles away from learning the intricacies of stone care in vulnerable areas, but they did the duties they had quickly and with few mistakes.

I spent the guarding shifts of the next season with Phaleth once more, and watched two more people torn to pieces in front of me as a result of the uncontrollable hunger of their friends. I knew neither of them personally, and for that I was grateful.

Tide cycles passed. Crops were planted and harvested. Children hatched. Sports scores changed in minor ways.

Klesth actually turned out to be an extremely good tunnel racer, quickly topping the child leagues by the time we were three quarters mature. But, as the older racers said, a racer's true talent is tested on an unfamiliar course – when Klesth was old enough to race in the other hives, then we would know just how representative of true skill those time records were.

And Klesth was determined to race in other hives.

“You should come with me, it'll be great. You can be an attendant.” Klesth seeded moss into the wall with a practised swirl of the tongue. It was seeding time, and we'd just reached our twelfth tidal cycle, which put us just on three-quarters mature.

“I don't want to be an attendant,” I said.

“A guard, then.”

“Just which of my qualities do you think would be good for a guard?”

“Well, we have to find some way to get you on the racing contingent! I can hardly do the hive tour without my best friend, can I?”

“Klesth, you know I'm not the travelling type.”

“Have I ever told you that you're no fun?”

“Yes, repeatedly. Have I ever told you that your seeding placement is terrible? Take a few steps back before you smear that. Better acid content.”

“How can you tell just by looking?”

“Because I'm good at my job. Unlike you. You're just lucky that you have me.”

“Braggart.”

“Just focus on the wall, racing extraordinaire.”

The wall that we were seeding happened to be part of the Eastern Dancer Hive's tunnel racing track. For Klesth's sake, I hid my irritation at the chips and dents left in it where unprepared racers had slammed into edges. Moving at such speed had its dangers. I smeared in the healing moss. It would repair the tunnel over time... assuming it could keep up with the tunnel racers.

We finished seeding the tunnels, let the crops settle, and all too soon I was picking up the spear again. Phaleth's eggs had come in that cycle, so for the first time, I'd be guarding the tunnel with somebody else. The Hivenet paired me with a timid looking child named Thirss.

Thirss was half mature, so it was the young farmer's first time guarding the crop. I watched little legs skitter nervously across the hall in front of me, little claws grip a spear way too tight, and wondered if I had ever looked that young, that unsure.

“First time guarding?” I asked unnecessarily. I knew it was.

“Yeah.”

“Well, don't worry. The job's not as hard as they make out. It's mostly boring, broken up with occasional bouts of telling people to go away.”

“Right. Of course.” Thirss didn't look convinced.

For the first few shifts we encountered nothing, and my young partner began to relax. I tried to think of a way to forewarn the trainee of the possibility of violence, of what exactly could happen. If we were quick and agile, we were relatively safe, but how do you warn somebody that they might have to watch their hivemates eat each other alive?

Besides, the knowledge would make Thirss more nervous. And that would seem like weakness to roaming adults, and increase the possibility of those kinds of injuries occurring.

If we were really, really lucky, then we could get through the whole breeding season without having to witness anything like that.

I strongly suspected I was low on luck, though. And the feeling only intensified when the first adult who came ambling toward my tunnel happened to be Phaleth.

My old guard partner was accompanied by somebody I didn't know, but both of them looked ready for trouble. I gripped my spear and tried not to look too scared. Phaleth had trained me for this job. I couldn't bluff, I couldn't posture. Phaleth knew those tricks.

Any adult farmer would, because every adult farmer had stood guard before, but Phaleth knew me personally.

Phaleth knew what would and wouldn't make me flinch.

“Hey there,” I called casually as the pair approached. “You two lost?”

“Just came to check up on you, hatchling. Making sure you're keeping out of trouble.”

So Phaleth had sought me out specifically. Brilliant. I could just see how that conversation must have went. 'Hey, I know this easy way into the crops, but don't tell anybody. There's this one weak support we can get past, grab a little bite, get out of there. It'll be no trouble.'

I raised my spear. The crop itself had barely started budding and wouldn't be exactly filling, but I could tell that Phaleth didn't care. With the wave of a couple of secondary claws, I indicated to Thirss that they should block the tunnel.

“It's going fine, Phaleth. You know how it is. Keeping adults away and all that.”

“Yeah, of course I do. So things are going well, then?”

“Quite well. A little busy. I'm sure you have things to get done as well,” I said pointedly.

“Oh, we have some free time.”

“Then perhaps you should go spend it ding something fun. No reason for you to hang out in a boring little cavern with us... is there?” I asked pointedly.

Phaleth was watching the spear in my hands. I wielded it confidently, having had plenty of chances to practice with it over time. And Phaleth had seen every one of them. “I guess we'd better let you get back to work, then, huh? Maybe I'll come back and check on you later.”

“Phaleth?”

“Yeah?”

“Good luck.”

“You too, little hatchling.”

The pair left, and I relaxed. “See, Thirss? Nothing to it.”


	15. Chapter 15

Phaleth had enough sense not to come back; even in my brief moments off-duty, I didn't see my old guarding partner for the whole season. We only saw one taxxon torn apart by their allies, and I tried to calm Thirss down, explaining how it wasn't their fault, how this sort of thing happened sometimes. I was somewhat worried that Phaleth might die during breeding – the fatality rate for adults in their first couple of breeding cycles is rather high – but I found them easily enough once access to the crops was reopened and things in the hive began to calm down. I didn't understand how something as simple as food availability could turn perfectly rational adults into vicious predators ready to tear their own friends apart.

I didn't understand what it was like to be truly hungry, back then.

But time passed and after a few more tide cycles, my own eggs came in. I was gently corralled in the upper levels of the hive after the crop seeding, barred from entering my own domain by nervous but determined children.

It was kind of insulting, really.

I mean, I was a farmer. I knew how to raise a crop. That very cycle, I was to be trusted with the difficult duty of tending the stone at the bottom of the intertidal layer for the first time, an honour reserved for only the most capable; but before that could happen, I was to be treated like some out-of-control simpleton who didn't understand the value of leaving a new crop to settle. I knew that the seeding crop had practically no energy within it; I knew that it needed to be left alone. Mere hunger wasn't going to make me think that doing something stupid like ruining our own crops was a good idea.

The main difference that the beginning of breeding season brought was that I was suddenly treated like an invading soldier by every child in the hive. I still felt and, so far as I could tell, acted perfectly normal, but I just needed to walk into a cavern and it would suddenly empty of children. I remembered doing the same thing when I was younger. We learned the lesson as hatchlings – breeding adults are dangerous. Leave them alone, stay out of their way.

It was only the farmers who didn't trust their adults during breeding season. The living net carers, the guards, the hunters, all continued to do their jobs – they were no threat to the hive's food stores. But for newly adult hunters, the busiest time of the cycle suddenly became idle time, and being banned from the intertidal layer, I had no idea what to do with myself. What had I done with my time before I was old enough to be a guard? Tried to keep Klesth out of trouble, probably.

At first, I was merely bored. I started spending more time in the Hivenet. I considered picking up on the old investigations I'd started so many tide cycles ago, trying to find out who had been attempting to edit the history of the Hivenet, but... was there really any point? It had seemed like blasphemy at the time, but I hadn't found unusual activity for cycles, and besides, every thought we wove altered the Hivenet. Did the layer really matter? The Hivenet was _supposed_ to change. Whoever had been so interested in altering the history of our opinion on the Root Spiders had been bad at it, so the tinkering probably didn't matter. And they must have gotten bored with the effort by now anyway. I'd observed nothing strange for many cycles.

Of course, I did mostly stick to one little part of the Hivenet. But if anything suspicious arose in other areas, the locals would find it. That was how the Hivenet worked.

Boredom, I could deal with. But then my metabolism began to speed up. And boredom combined with hunger is a whole other experience.

The food stores quickly ran out, as they did every year. I told myself it didn't matter; I could survive until the crops opened up again easily. I did every tide cycle.

But for an adult, it's a little more difficult.

At first, I just felt quite hungry. But it wasn't long before the hunger increased until it transformed into something completely out of my realm of experience. Really wanting to eat something was distracting, but this hunger was like a raw wound in my gut, as if my entire body was screaming. Even I could see myself becoming restless, snappy. But there wasn't much I could do about it, even if I could make myself care enough to try.

Klesth was as hungry as I was, but well-connected enough to do something about it. My friend had a talk with some hunters and had them agree to take us on one of their trips. I had no desire to travel outside the next, but the thought of food to quell the terrible pain inside me, if only for a moment, was very alluring. I didn't fight against Klesth's insistence very hard.

Sheeyeth and two hunters I didn't know met Klesth and me under the Hivenet, and together we made the journey to the surface. It's a difficult and somewhat roundabout route, designed that way to deter invaders. The only viable way to get into the hive (unless one wanted to try burrowing a new tunnel through dirt and stone for a couple of tide cycles and simply hope to hit one of ours) was through the entrance under the Eastern Dancer Tree, which was wide but heavily guarded. And that entrance didn't just lead right into the hive – there was a whole array of security obstacles, and to get out, we had to go through each of them in reverse.

First, we had to travel via the living net to a small chamber that wasn't connected to the hive proper via normal tunnels. A single normal tunnel lead out towards the tunnel entrance, but the only way to get from the chamber into the hive itself was through the living net. Since access to the living net could only be granted from inside the hive, this prevented anybody unauthorised from getting in. If they wanted to try, they'd have to fight the living net itself.

From there, we headed down the only normal tunnel, which went through several twists and spirals to make it difficult to move down at any great speed. There were several very small adjoined chambers, each containing guards with something red smeared on their claws, ready to pile into the entrance tunnel at a moment's notice. We were leaving the hive, so they paid us almost no attention.

The tunnel led into the dirt layer of the hive. I spent almost no time in the dirt, myself. But this layer was about four levels of tunnels built into a labyrinth, deliberately designed to be very difficult to navigate. An invading army would quickly become lost, and fighting their way through every tunnel while they tried to find the correct one would slow them down considerably. The hunters, however, knew their way, and we just followed them out. The four guards at the tunnel entrance looked at Klesth and me suspiciously, but clearly recognised the hunters, because they let us pass.

And then, suddenly, we were standing on top of the hive.

The vast bulk of the Eastern Dancer Tree stood behind us, a long wooden shaft that was twisted by the forces of nature into the vague shape of somebody in a dancing pose. Its base was buried in the ground, where I knew it would stretch its roots down and into the chamber of the Hivenet to be woven into the very thoughts of the hive. There were roots high above us, too, stretched up towards the sky, stiff and straight and looking much less flexible – these were the roots from which the sacred spears of the crop guards were made.

The soil under our feet had some kind of stringy green growth on it. It was patchy and uneven, far inferior to our own crops, whatever it was. The ground took up an uncomfortably vast space, with no tunnel or chamber walls to guide us. I actually couldn't see any walls, anywhere; they were so far away that they were completely out of my range of vision. As for looking up...

Looking up, I saw nothing.

The light outside was painfully bright and the roof of the outside chamber somewhere far above us was red, but so far away as to be meaningless. I simply wasn't capable of understanding the distance. Had anybody ever seen the roof of the chamber? Had anybody ever even seen the walls? I knew that if you walked in the correct direction, you would eventually run into the Root Spider Hive. If you walked farther, you would find the Giant Foreclaw Hive. All four of the hives with which we had contact were within the chamber, and they had contact with others, and nobody had ever mentioned being impeded by a chamber wall.

The world above the hive just seemed to go on forever in every possible direction. The only safe direction, the only direction with any bearings, was down. Down, back into the hive.

Sheeyeth dug around the base of the Eastern Dancer Tree and pulled out a small container, like two little wooden bowls facing each other. They were wrapped together with the fibrous crop growing from the soil around us. Sheeyeth unwrapped them and revealed a red paste inside. I asked what it was.

“It's made from sithsil venom.” The hunters painted it on their claws and then passed the container to us. “It'll give you the edge in a fight, just nip hard enough to break the shell. Don't get it under your own shell, though; believe me, you'll regret it.”

I didn't ask what a sithsil was. I probably didn't want to know.

We were each given a weapon. The weapons were somewhat like spears, but they were extremely long, perhaps half the length of my body, and instead of being sharpened to a point, a long, sharp piece of back stone was attached. The sharp stone edges were similarly coated in the sithsil venom paste, and we made our way out into the world.

I became lost as soon as we lost sight of the Eastern Dancer Tree. Without the benefit of guiding tunnel walls, I didn't understand how anybody could possibly navigate. But Sheeyeth shared a little advice as we walked.

“You will notice that all the light is coming from a particular direction. This direction will change over the course of a single crest. For a half-crest, there will be almost no light, and it will be darker than the tunnels of the hive, but for the other half-crest, light bears down from above. We have timed this journey to begin just as the light is disappearing. It always comes from the same direction as it appears, then moved upward above us, and then disappears on the opposite side. In one crest, it will again be where it is now, disappearing.

“If you know whether the light is coming or going, you know your directions, because it always arrives and disappears from the same direction. So if we were walking towards the disappearing light direction on the way out, we merely need to put it behind us on the way back. You can navigate in space dependent on time.”

“And it does the same thing every crest?” I asked.

“Yes. Some people believe that the time interval we call a crest comes from the hunters, navigating in this way.”

Well, of course hunters would want to think that they invented everything. The seasons were categorised by the farmers, though, and they were far more important, so I saw no point in arguing.

The ground beneath us was uneven, sloping upward and downward. Sometimes, two parts of downward-sloping ground would meet and create a sort of roofless tunnel. We kept walking until we found one of these tunnels that was flooded with water.

“Come on,” Sheeyeth said, and dived in. Naturally, we followed.

It was much easier to move in water, although I was very nervous about the tunnel not having a roof. I kept expecting something to drop on us from above even as we walked, and in the water, it was no different. I did experience the odd sensation of being able to _see_ in water – water might absorb the glow of stone, but whatever light flooded the aboveground chamber, it penetrated it easily. Trying to see and concentrate on the water ripples at the same time was somewhat difficult, however, so I did my best to shut out the images and simply concentrate on touch to navigate as normal.

After awhile, we climbed out of the water and walked up some more inclined ground. Suddenly, all three hunters froze. Klesth and I took our cue from them, and didn't move.

“False alarm,” one of them said. “Just taxxons.”

We reached the top of the incline, and there were indeed taxxons on the other side, bearing the unmistakeable scent of the Eastern Moss Hive. They were armed similarly to us, their weapons and claws also painted red. We exchanged polite, somewhat wary greetings, and each group quickly went on our way before we could say anything that would offend the other.

“Careful of them,” Sheeyeth said. “They're moving out to hunt near our hive instead of theirs so they don't depopulate the local prey.”

“Aren't we exactly the same same thing?” another of the hunters pointed out.

“I didn't say it wasn't a good idea.”

It wasn't long before we sighted prey.

We stood at the top of an incline, looking down at some kind of beasts that were moving slowly along the ground. The stringy crop that grew from the soil was all ripped up in their wake, leaving dark, loose dirt. They were six-legged, but their legs weren't like ours; in fact they seemed to be entirely leg. They were basically big fleshy lumps with their six big, thick limbs all radiating out from the center. They lay flat on the ground, more dragging themselves than lifting them, chewing up vegetation as they went. They had no discernible body parts, other than the legs; no obvious head or spine or anything. Just six legs radiating out evenly from the center, clinging to the ground. Each beast was about half of the size of a taxxon.

There were four such creatures, and they didn't seem to notice us at all.

“Aha,” Sheeyeth said. “Not a bad find. One each, then; the rookies can tackle one together. Don't forget to watch out for the teeth and claws.”

“What teeth and claws?” Klesth asked, but it was too late, because the hunters were already charging. We raised our weapons and followed suit.

The beast we were charging didn't even seem to notice us as we dashed down the slope. I brought my weapon down, aiming for the center.

But the weapon didn't connect, because as I brought it down, my prey simply fell apart.

Legs split away from the center, dividing the creature into six neat segments, each of which flipped up and threw themselves right at us. Only then did we see the teeth and claws.

We hadn't been fighting a single beast with six legs. We'd been fighting six beasts that were all connected. Where they'd been attached to each other in the center, each sported a wide mouth ringed with teeth, much like our own. At the other end of each beast, the end that had seemed to be the tip of each of the six legs, were several long, hard protrusions that looked to be able to grasp things.

They also looked very sharp.

The air suddenly filled with mouths on legs, I backed away as fast as I could. They were surprisingly agile; after a few attempts to hit them with my weapon, I realised that it was useless, and threw it aside. A hunter might be able to employ the thing properly, but to me it was just unwieldy and strange. Instead I snapped with my foreclaws, and was able to nip one. The creatures were tough and rubbery, but didn't seem to have a shell. As soon as my claw pierced the beast, it stopped making an effort to kill me and instead started flailing and thrashing about the ground. It was hard to tell, but it looked to be in extreme pain.

I'd just learned what sithsil venom was for.

Invigorated by my victory, I aimed for another. One all six of the beasts were in pain, they were so much easier for us to tear apart and eat, and we did exactly that, with the desperation of the impossibly hungry. It helped feel the pit inside me, but didn't sate me entirely. We looked around for more food, but the hunters had already finished with theirs.

One of them, I noticed, was standing a fair way away from the rest of us. “Sheff,” Sheeyeth called over. “Are you okay?”

“I, uh... I lost a couple of claws.”

A pause. “Any major damage?”

“No. Just limbs.”

“Blood?”

“A little blood.”

“How much?”

“Just... you know. Limb blood?”

“Has everyone eaten?” Sheeyeth asked the rest of us. Silently, we indicated that we had. “Will the bleeding stop by the time we get back?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I think so.”

“Right. Sheff, stay a fair way back, we don't want anybody getting too excited. Let's get out of here. Don't worry, my friend. We'll get you home safely.”

The light from the sky had almost entirely disappeared, and it was difficult to see Sheeyeth leading the way as we made our way back to the hive. Sheff carefully wiped away all blood before entering the hive; already, the wound was healing. Walking back through the complex entrance system, I had some indication of how an invader might feel, including suspicious glares from the guards.

 


	16. Chapter 16

I went out hunting whenever I could, but we didn't make any more big kills. We tried to hunt during the half-crest when the light from the sky was low or absent, the time that the hunters called 'night'. Occasionally we had to hunt in full light, which nobody liked to do. The brightness hurt my eyes and obscured my vision. The hunters insisted that I would adapt to it over time, but even they preferred the night; many of our prey couldn't see as well in the dark as we could, and were harder to stalk in the light. The light also carried the risk of more larger predators that might try to make a meal of us. Sometimes, though, our hunger drove us out into the light.

The hunger only got worse over time. The ache in my gut intensified until it seemed all but unquenchable, until everything around me started to seem like food. The very stone and soil of the hive held no nutritional value, but I nevertheless wanted to chew my way through it just to fill my gut with something, anything. I could smell the crops growing in, and while I knew that they were only barely beginning to bud and couldn't satisfy me, the scent was hard to resist.

I tried to keep myself busy with work. I surveyed the areas of the nontidal layer that were scheduled for repairs after the breeding season. I imagined the moss that we would grow through the stone, strengthening it. I imagined taking my teeth to it.

I started to inspect the lowest levels of the nontidal layer, planning strengthening treatments in my mind. In retrospect, that was actually quite a stupid thing to do, given that the border between the two, by definition, was right above the farms.

I didn't mean to end up in one of the little caverns from which a crop sector entrance tunnel branched. I just did.

And here's the thing about hunger – the hungrier you are, the more things looked like food. No properly fed taxxon would look at a barely settled, budding crop and think it seemed delicious. They'd know that it wasn't worth chewing through the stone. The crop wasn't even the most energy-rich food that I could detect from the cavern. It would be a lot more satisfying to tear into the meat of the two beasts in the room with me, each about my size, although not bloated and weak with starvation as I was. Each just a package of healthy, tasty meat wrapped up in an outer shell. They were armed, though; their claws were no real threat, but the pointed spears they carried could be.

I recognised one of the prey. Guards. One of the guards. Esheinth. My old trainee. But bigger, now. It had been a few tide cycles since Esheinth and Wesheth had needed my supervision. I didn't know the other guard. But they were about the same age. Was there no older guard to teach them? The farmers must be stretched thin.

“Hi, Sethril,” Esheinth greeted me cautiously as I entered. “What are you doing down here?”

“Just checking the walls,” I said. “It's a vulnerable area. It's important to know what areas to concentrate on, come building time.”

“Right.” Esheinth and the other guard both moved to keep the tunnel entrance covered, concentrating the distracting scent of food into one place. But I couldn't afford to be distracted. I had work to do.

The tide had risen lower than average during the hightide season, which was good for the quality of stone where the layers met, if less so for the actual crop harvest. I moved slowly around the cavern, checking for weak spots.

Was there any reason I couldn't just... start burrowing through the walls? Just keep chewing until there was something inside me to at least trick my body into thinking I wasn't hungry? I felt like my gut was digesting itself in order to feed the eggs growing within me. Eggs I wouldn't even use, because it took a special combination of arrogance and stupidity for anybody to try laying during their first breeding. Such a stupid waste of energy. And if I could just fill my gut for long enough to think straight for a moment, everything would be fine.

I moved closer to the crop sector entrance, and Esheinth's partner retreated slightly into the tunnel, blocking it more securely. The guard froze, then put a claw to the wall. “Esheinth. What's this?”

“Sithril, get back. Back!”

I obediently stepped back in response to the spear being waved in my general direction. Esheinth backed into the tunnel and put one claw to the wall. “I don't know. It's big.”

“Big, but I can't pinpoint it. I think it's really deep?”

That got my attention. “Is there an invader in the tunnels?”

“This isn't your concern, Sethril. Sharn, if it's deep, it must be... huge! But...”

“No, this doesn't make any sense. None of this makes sense.”

“Guys, what is it? Perhaps I can – ”

“Sethril, if you want to help, get out of here so that I don't have to keep an eye on you. Sharn, go find the most senior farmer you can who isn't crazy with hunger and get them to feel this. We need a more experienced claw.”

The other guard skittered off. I stepped closer to my former trainee, only to be confronted once more by the spear.

“If you don't think I'll put out an eye or two, you are sorely mistaken.”

“Esheinth, please. I'm not going after the crop...” ... with the inviting smell of meat with so much more energy than that paltry fare, who would... “... I just want to know what's going on. I might be able to help.”

“I can't let you close.”

“You can hold that spear at my side if you like. I only need to touch the wall.”

“Please don't do something that will force me to kill you. I don't want to kill you.”

“It's my life, Esheinth. Let me take the risk. I don't know what you guys felt but if it's something strange, something new, then we may not have time for your partner to come back.”

“You're a danger to the crop.”

“I'm not the only danger to the crop! It's your job to protect those tunnels, and not just from me! If you need to use me to do it, well, that's your duty.”

“And if this is a trick...”

“It isn't.”

“Even if it isn't, if you lose control...”

“Then you'll have to do more of your duty. But let me try. Please.”

Esheinth hesitated a moment, then got out of the way. But the point of the spear stayed at my side, I noticed.

I walked up to the tunnel, knowing full well that if I even looked like going for a bite, I would be dead. I wouldn't have a chance to sate the burning within, because I wouldn't live long enough to try. But would that really be so bad? An end to the pain was an end, even if it wasn't quite the best one.

Yes, that would be bad, because I had a duty. I had to protect the crop.

I pressed one trembling claw gently to the wall. Of course, my claw was made of meat, too. And claws regenerated. If I just...

I could feel vibrations in the tunnels, strange vibrations. I pulled my mind back to the job I was meant to be doing. Movement. But far off. They'd been right; it was deep.

Vibrations travelled far in the waterlogged stone of the crop tunnels, but everything had its limits. There must be a lot of movement for anything to travel so high. The senses of a farmer were tuned specifically to hear and feel the different echoes of potential problems in the stone, like mites. What I heard wasn't anything like mites. It was... unlocatable, beyond being deep. It could be to the left, right, ahead; I didn't know. It was... fuzzy, indistinct, probably because the vibrations had travelled so far through stone. The only real clue I had was my own instincts, which told me to ignore it; it wasn't important, I should focus on other things. My senses kept drifting, looking for other vibrations. And the moss smelled so delicious, immature or not...

I backed away slowly from the tunnel. I needed a better read. Esheinth quickly moved in place to block the tunnel once more, and I instead selected a patch of wall nearby, bit a small hole to access the moist stone within, and pressed my tongue into it.

Still indistinct, generalised vibrations. But familiar. Dismissable. There was something in the rhythm that seemed like something I knew, and knew to ignore. What did I do that with, in the tunnels? When I was listening, what did I filter out?

I filtered out _the sounds of other farmers_.

Other people moving through the tunnels, digging in the walls, seeking mites; they were irrelevant, background vibrations. As soon as I realised it, the vibrations became obvious. They were taxxons. A lot of taxxons. They were deep, and moving, and eating... the tender, young crops... but they didn't get it! I got it! I needed to get it before it was gone!

I bit frantically at the stone, tunnelling toward the crop tunnels, only for something to impact against my side and pull me away from the wall. Esheinth; Esheinth had charged me.

“Taxxons!” I said. “It's taxxons. Lots of them. They're deep.”

“There have been no alarms raised,” Esheinth reasoned. “Nobody could have gotten down so far.”

“They didn't go down! They're coming up! We're being invaded!”


	17. Chapter 17

“You're raving,” Esheinth said calmly. “Nobody can get into the bottom of a hive. That makes no sense.”

“I know. I don't know how they did it, but trust me, they're there. You have to stop them; you have to protect – ”

“Sethril, you're panicking. You're feeling things that aren't there. Just let us do our jobs; the crops are safe in our care.”

“You're not listening to me!”

“What, I'm not listening about the tunnels being full of mystery taxxons with no way in?”

Why did Esheinth have to be so... so frustrating? One little half-mature bundle of flesh stood between me and the delicious crop. I mean, invaders. Invaders eating their way through my food, feeding their own flesh with my moss, for all the good it would do them. I bet they had a lot of flesh, too. More than the little morsel ahead of me, the only thing I needed to eliminate to do my duty. But that should be easy enough, if I could avoid the spear. I had my teeth. I had...

Esheinth had been my _trainee_. Had been under my protection.

But the stupid little morsel wasn't _listening_ to me. How could I convince the guards to get down there, to deal with the problem?

Well, I didn't really need to convince them, did I? I just needed to get them there.

I took to the wall again, digging toward the crop tunnels. This time, I kept myself aware of Esheinth. I was ready for the body slam. I ducked around the young guard, and into the crop tunnel.

Food was all around me, but I couldn't afford to stop. Once a starving adult is in a crop tunnel, there's no way to force them out. Standard procedure was to simply cut losses by stopping the rampage. Once in the tunnel, Esheinth couldn't afford to hesitate, to give second chances or show mercy.

If I let Esheinth catch up to me, I would die.

The scent of moss was choking, cloying. But I kept my mind focused on the meat below. The tasty prey, the better prey, better than the immature crops that contained barely enough energy for their own digestion. I moved downward. I knew the crop tunnels.

Of course, the guards were also farmers of the Eastern Dancer Hive. They knew the crop tunnels, too. They knew where the hairpin turns and dead ends were, and they knew how to move above me and then tunnel down, one in front and one behind, to trap me and stab me with spears until I died. So I needed to stay one step ahead of them until we were close enough for them to feel the invaders properly, to understand.

Of course, eventually, they would catch me. I had no illusions of making it out of those tunnels alive.

I didn't have to stop to feel the thundering nearby footsteps of Esheinth through the stone. I focused on the meat, finding the meat, killing the meat; not Esheinth, of course, Esheinth was meat but there was _better_ meat far below, meat that I had to get first...

I tore down just the right piece of stone to cave the tunnel behind me, blocking off Esheinth temporarily. The guard would chew through no problem, but it bought me a few skips to tunnel downward to the next layer.

I took a left, and found myself under two guards, ready to burrow down and trap me; but I knew the trick. I put on an extra burst of speed, and both landed in the tunnel behind me. I could smell it – blood. Acid. Beneath it all, the scent of the Root Spider Hive.

Just around one more corner.

I took it, and saw the source of the scent of blood and flesh – a taxxon, or what must have in theory been a taxxon based on the Root Spider scent, thrashing madly through the tunnel, widening it by chewing at the walls. The invader was as swollen with starvation as I was, but in worse shape; patches of skin were missing, oozing blood. All of the eyes were quite badly damaged. There was a strong smell of acid, much too strong for the tunnel level, lingering not only on the invader but an acid trail down the corridor behind it.

It smelled of the ocean.

That's how the invaders had entered the hive. They'd swam from their own through the underground ocean and climbed up in ours, neatly bypassing the security measures on the actual hive entrance.

That was supposed to be impossible.

At that moment, though, I wasn't really sure what I was looking at. I didn't care that it had the face of a taxxon and smelled of Root Spider. I didn't even care that it was tearing up my crop tunnels.

I cared that it was weakened, and made of meat.

I screeched and charged. The beast turned to lock teeth, but too late; I was already on it, pulling flesh from its sides and gulping it down, mouthful by acrid mouthful. Guts spilled onto the stone, and the beast itself helped, attempting to eat its own intestines. If the guards were still about, I didn't notice them. They were irrelevant. The food was important.

And I could smell more.

All I needed to do was smell for acid. I had trained to smell acid my whole life.

They were weakened, bleeding Root Spiders, leaving trails of acid and destruction in my crop tunnels, and they were probably soldiers, not farmers. I smelled of the hive I was in, I knew those tunnels specifically, and how to move in crop tunnels in general. We were all maddened with hunger, but I had a richer target than pathetic, barely-budding crops.

It was no contest.

But there were many of them. So many. Sometimes I encountered a guard with a spear; they left me alone. We both had more important prey to worry about. Sometimes I encountered invaders who had died eating each other. I cleaned up the mess. There was no sense letting meat go to waste.

But sometimes they were alive, and fought.

I lost a claw to the second invader I fought. The first had been easy enough that I underestimated them. But in the end I managed to lock teeth with them and drag them along the tunnel wall, their acid-weakened skin and shells easily torn away in fragments, until finally their blood and guts were smeared out along the stone. Another nearly managed to take out my eye; I had to back up quickly and collapse some of the tunnel on them to slow them down.

The last one I fought, though, was the most difficult.

I don't know how much taxxon flesh I'd eaten by then. My ability to distinguish one battle from the next wasn't good enough to properly count, and there had been so many random taxxon parts and so many with parts missing... but I was thinking a little better. The haze I walked in was one of violence, anger and shock, not pure hunger. The hunger still hurt, but it wasn't all-consuming.

In fact, I was pretty sure most of the pain was because I had eaten way too much.

I still wanted more, though.

The last invader I locked teeth with could very well have been an elder, it was a little hard to tell through the damage left by the acidic ocean. Whoever they were, they knew what they were doing. We'd barely locked teeth when I was lifted and slammed against the ground, then against the wall. Dazed, I tried to resist, but it was impossible to determine which direction I'd be tossed in next. Eventually, my soft, weakened shell split, and blood and guts oozed out.

That was a death sentence.

The invader I fought lot all strategy, all reason. Normally that would be an advantage for me, but they moved with such surety and ferocity that it was impossible to meet them in direct combat. I did the only thing I could do. I backed up until the tunnel became wide enough to turn. And then I turned and ran.

They chased after me.

The situation was bad. Very bad. On the one hand, I had more energy and knew the tunnels better. On the other, they were fuelled by hunger and desperation, and didn't need to know the tunnels; they just had to follow the nice trail of blood and guts I left on the stone.

I couldn't stop to worry about my wound. But for as long as I was wounded, I couldn't lose my pursuer.

They would catch me, and they would eat me alive.

I gained distance slowly, my ability to anticipate twists and tunnels giving me a slight advantage. But it made no difference. So long as I was leaving a trail, they'd follow me, no matter where I went.

No, they wouldn't follow _me_... they'd follow _my trail_.

I needed a head start. I sped up as much as I could.

Slowly, the distance between us lengthened. I led them around tight turns, tricky corners. I bought time by skips, in tiny delays. And when I had enough, I headed for the nearest hairpin turn.

Every muscle in my body burned. But between exhaustion, the wound, hunger, and sheer shock, pain didn't really mean anything any more. I raced down the tunnel that doubled back so that the second half ran parallel to the first, took the turn, and began to tunnel through the side of the adjoining wall. Once I was most of the way through, I stopped.

I could hear the invader racing toward me, following my trail. I heard them start racing up the first part of the tunnel. I heard them barrel past me.

When they were halfway past, I burst through the wall and bit down into the soft, yielding flesh of their side.

The invader screeched in pain and surprise, but I didn't care; they were still enough to rip apart, and I did exactly that. They struggled, bringing down walls; I bit, bringing down more. Heavy stone fell on top of us.

I don't really remember what happened after that.


	18. Chapter 18

I found myself in water.

I couldn't see, but I could feel the stone pressing around me. There was no sign of my adversary. The caved in tunnel must have flooded, I realised, and the invader finished off by either me or the acid in the water. We were a good third of the way up the intertidal layer, so the water wasn't dangerously acidic, but even mild water could be dangerous in open wounds.

But hadn't I been wounded, too?

I moved experimentally. There was a dull ache in my side, but it wasn't extremely painful. My missing claws had grown back. So I had been there for some time. A few crests, perhaps. In a healing stupor, probably. It must have been long enough to digest my meal, because I wasn't very hungry at all. But then, healing stupors can do strange things to one's metabolism.

I chewed my way up through the stone into more water. Just how much of the intertidal layer had been flooded? The invaders alone had done enough damage to our harvest; extensive water damage would be a disaster.

The next tunnel up was clear. But the stone was wrong. I couldn't pinpoint exactly why, at first; it was healthy stone. Then I realised, it was bare of moss. The crop had died.

Maybe it was just a local problem. But if not... disaster didn't cover it.

There was a farmer up ahead, idly inspecting part of the stone.

“Hey!” I called. They turned. It was Esheinth, but without a spear. The fighting must be over.

Esheinth froze.

“Hey,” I said again. “You're alright. Glad to see it.”

“Sethril?” Esheinth asked blankly.

Right. The last the young guard had seen of me, I'd been tearing somebody apart and eating them. Caution was understandable. I kept my pose as non-threatening as possible.

“Well you don't have to look so surprised,” I said jokingly. “You thought something as little as an invading army would kill me?”

“Sethril.” Esheinth came closer, brushed claws over me as if to verify that I was actually there. “By the ocean under the hive, it is you.”

“You were expecting somebody else?”

“I was expecting... where have you been?!”

“Fighting, mostly. I may have fallen into a healing stupor for a couple of crests. Look, that doesn't matter. The more important question is, what happened to the crop? How extensive is this damage?”

“Crop? We brought it in. A fair few of the lower tunnels were damaged, but we brought in enough to get by. It'll be a lean cycle, though.”

“Brought it... we just planted it!”

“Sethril, you've been missing for almost a whole cycle. The hightide season came, and is on its way out. We thought you were dead.”

“Wait, what?” In one way, that was a relief; the crop wasn't all dead, or at least, it wasn't dead when it was meant to be alive. But it's a little hard to simply accept news like that.

“The breeding? The harvest? The tunnel racing?”

“All in the past. Well, tunnel racing was cancelled. Invasion and all that.”

“I bet Klesth had something to say about that.”

“Oh, you... of course, you don't know.”

“I don't know what?”

“You weren't the only adult to engage the Root Spider invaders. Some of the others... there were quite heavy casualties. Sethril... Klesth is dead.”


	19. Chapter 19

Every single warrior of the Root Spider Hive was dead.

They didn't know it yet. But they were. I just needed to find out exactly how to kill them.

On Esheinth's insistence, I went to the healers. My wounds had left a long, jagged scar down my right side; the consequence of healing in a caved in tunnel without medical supervision. It ached, but not enough to be a serious inconvenience. The healers warned me that as I aged, it could cause problems in that side of my body. Stiffness, mostly.

Everybody was quite interested in my supposed return from the dead, and for some time I was somewhat of a celebrity within my own hive – the taxxon who had charged down the tunnel on a mission to the death to raise the alarm and protect my hive from invasion. A martyr, with the added bonus of still being alive. On request, I wove my side of the story into the Hivenet, not shirking on the violent details. For some reason, that just made me more popular. Dancers began asking me what my favourite types of dance were and trying to get details on the more dramatic parts of my tale, apparently under the impression that they were being subtle. They were not, and the whole line of questioning made me somewhat apprehensive. If they were planning on plotting a dance, though, they'd have a long time to practice it, since we wouldn't be having tunnel racing feasts any time in the near future.

The hive had changed significantly in my brief absence. Naturally, we had no communication with the Root Spider Hive. The Root Spider defectors in our own hive had sensibly moved on to more neutral hives. It was sad that they could no longer feel safe among their hivemates, but I couldn't really blame them. The lack of tunnel racing that cycle had meant that most of the hive had been much less busy than normal, and they'd turned their attention to other tasks, such as hunting and guarding.

Normally, the hunting space aboveground was tacitly assumed to be neutral territory, and groups of hunters from different hives simply moved around each other. But the area between the Root Spider and Eastern Dancer Hives had been strictly divided, and poachers in the wrong territory were to be killed on sight. Most of the more experienced hunters stayed away from the area, because it left us with little room to hunt, and simply hunted on the other sides of the hive, but activity was suspiciously high for hunting guards, or others in the hive who were simply hunting in a non-professional capacity. I joined such groups when I had the time. After all, we had to supplement the poor harvest with meat (although the lack of feasts for racers had apparently helped).

Of course, we weren't just interested in meat. We were more interested in finding poachers.

Theph, the Giant Foreclaw labourer who I recognised on sight but wasn't overly close to, came forward with a Giant Foreclaw technology to boost our hunting effectiveness, given the lean times. That hive had a way of taking metal and forming it into shapes. When we found nodules of metal in the stone, we normally dissolved them in acid and disposed of it in the ocean, but Theph's metal shapes were extremely useful. Several labourers were instructed in creating them, and gave us tough, easily repaired weapons, as well as special artificial shells to wear on the outside of our bodies.

As these items were Giant Foreclaw technology, it would be somewhat undiplomatic to use them where we may encounter Giant Foreclaw hunters. So they were largely restricted to hunting along the border between our territory and that of the Root Spider Hive.

One of the labourers discovered a new way to use the metal by accident. They had been conferring with some of the farming and construction elders about dissolving metals in acid, trying to find an easier way to shape them, and found that if you dissolved the right metals in the right kind of acid, they stored a kind of hot light. You couldn't tell unless you ran a piece of shaped metal between them, in which case the hot light would flare through it. We called the discovery 'brightiron'. It wasn't considered important until somebody realised that if you took two pieces of shaped metal and put something like, say, taxxon flesh between them, the hot light would run through that flesh as well.

I tried it out on a claw. Fortunately, claws grow back.

So it wasn't long before we were carrying small containers of acid into the field, hooked up to double-pronged iron spears and being careful not to touch the wrong end to anything we cared about.

There was, naturally, talk of invading the Root Spider Hive. In light of their horrific attack, retaliation seemed natural. Their population was fairly low; we could mount an attack and do some serious damage, leave them struggling for tide cycles. We could remind them why attacking the Eastern Dancer Hive, especially in such a cowardly way, was the wrong idea.

But doing so would harm our own hive too, and we had to be sure that we could recover easily. Launching an attack right at the end of hightide season was probably a poor choice, because soon the crop would need to be planted again, and would be vulnerable. On the other hand, if something was going to lower our adult population, doing so right before breeding season began was the ideal time. But what if the attack left us vulnerable to attack from other hives? We were on fairly good terms with the other hives, but we'd thought we were on good terms with the Root Spiders as well, and then they'd attacked. Apparently, we couldn't trust anybody.

The time came to inspect the crop tunnels once more, and I did it without Klesth. Esheinth had requested to partner with me, so the pair of us made the awkward, silent trek through the tunnels. My other trainee, Wesheth, had died in the attack as well, bravely defending the hive against hunger-mad invaders rising from the ocean. I remembered how scared Esheinth and Wethesh had been of that ocean, the first time we'd gone down to the bottom of the tunnels. Apparently, their instincts had been good.

The few words we did exchange weren't about tunnel quality. They were about revenge. Esheinth had never been outside the hive; by then, I was much more comfortable with the world above ground. I had patrolled the border between our territory and the Root Spiders' in darkness and in light, in bitter cold and in warmth that ate through my artificial metal shell. I knew how to navigate via the direction of light well enough to reach the border, pace it, and get back. I knew every landmark along the way, the types of prey to be found there, and what predators to watch out for. I convinced Esheinth to go hunting with me, with a team of trusted friends that I would put together. The young farmer (young? Almost three quarter mature by then) agreed.

My team consisted of Sheeyeth, Phaleth, and Esheinth. My hunting and guard mentors, and my farming trainee. To be completely honest, neither Sheeyeth nor Phaleth were there for me. Klesth had been their friend, too. Esheinth had barely known who Klesth was, but the bond between Esheinth and Wethesh had been as strong as that between Klesth and me.

Sheeyeth, as the experienced hunter among us, was our hunt leader and captain. We haunted the border, as I usually did, occasionally taking down prey but more often not; the area was fairly well patrolled and most beasts knew better than to spend time there. It was our third patrol that we found a real prize.

The beast was larger than all of us put together. It lumbered along on twelve pairs of legs, about three times the height of a taxxon and five times the length, and was covered in a hard, thick shell. It didn't have any obvious eyes, but long feelers on either side of its mouth brushed the ground.

It was badly wounded.

Blood poured from a long gash down one side of its body. Some of its legs didn't work very well. I'd long ago learned the golden rule of hunting – that if something didn't look like it could defend itself, there was probably a very good reason it was still alive, and caution was important – but this beast was clearly an easy kill.

“Position,” Sheeyeth ordered. “But – this is important – DO NOT engage without my signal. It will be a long wait. Stay completely silent, completely hidden, and DO NOT engage.”

Sheeyeth sounded a little nervous, or perhaps excited, but I didn't question my captain. I just moved around to the creature's left and ducked behind a small bush atop a hill, readying my brightiron spear. Esheinth moved into place beside me.

The beast became closer, closer, until I lined up the perfect attack. I could just see it; I would slice off the nearest feeler, causing the creature to step back in pain as the brightiron burned, and then Esheinth would duck forward under the beast to force another spear through the thinner, softer-looking shell down there. By then I would be at the beast's throat, letting Phaleth and Sheeyeth deal with the legs.

I waited for the attack signal. It didn't come. The beast kept moving past.

Perhaps somebody hadn't been in position. Esheinth and I repositioned ourselves.

Another perfect shot. No call to attack.

What was Sheeyeth playing at? Had something gone wrong? I moved to rendezvous with Sheeyeth, but Esheinth held me back.

“We should hold position.”

“No attack's been called. I want to know why not.”

“The most experienced hunter among us must have a good reason, right?”

“And if something went wrong?”

“Then Sheeyeth or Phaleth would call an alarm.”

“Yeah. I guess you're right.”

We settled down once more to wait.

“I never apologised to you,” Esheinth said.

“Apologised? For what?”

“For not believing you about the invaders.”

“A hunger-mad adult comes up to you in breeding season and starts ranting about something in the tunnels? You did exactly the right thing. I wouldn't have believed me either. In fact, you gave me a lot more leeway than I would've given. That second time I tried to tunnel in, when you tried to body slam me again? I would've used the spear. You'd already given one warning shove. I thought there was maybe a three quarter chance I'd end up disembowelled right there.”

“And yet you did it anyway.”

“Esheinth, as soon as I decided to try to lead you guards down there, I didn't expect to get out alive. My goal was to get you as close to possible to the invaders before one of you stabbed me. That could've been up in the cavern, sure; or if I was lucky, it could've been halfway down the sector where you might feel more recognisable vibrations; or if I was really lucky, you might be nearly close enough to see one of the invaders. I definitely didn't expect to make it out of there alive. So... you know. Thanks for the extra chance.”

We fell silent as the beast moved in for a third perfect attack, and then moved past us once again. But by then, we could see something small in the distance, moving in a very familiar way. Five little dots. They grew larger as they approached, until we could make out individual features. We couldn't smell them yet, but we knew what they would smell like.

Only then did I understand Sheeyeth's attack plan.

An amateur hunter like me looked at a wounded animal and asked, 'Is this easy prey?' A professional hunter like Sheeyeth looked at a wounded animal, instantly knew how easy it would be to take down, and asked, 'what kind of predator wounds an animal like that?'

Sheeyeth had seen enough wounded animals to know exactly what wounded an animal like that. Taxxon hunters.

In this case, five fairly young looking taxxon hunters of the Root Spider Hive.

They must have wounded their prey in their own territory and then tracked it over the border. Perhaps they didn't realise that they'd crossed the border.

We were in luck.

We watched the five catch up to the beast, and we moved quickly out of the way so that they could position themselves and launch an attack without noticing us. They were reasonably good, for hunters so young; they removed the feelers (the only obvious sensory organs) and then used the existing injury to their advantage to take down the beast with sithsil-painted weapons. They sustained a few injuries themselves, but nothing fatal. They were, however, exhausted, and stopped to rest before cutting up their kill to transport home.

Sheeyeth whistled the attack call.

The hunters jumped at the sound, clearly not expecting us. I almost felt sorry for them. They were barely half-mature. But I told myself not to get complacent; they'd just brought down some pretty impressive prey right in front of us, after all.

We quickly surrounded the group, who locked together into a defensive pattern, each covering a different direction with their sithsil-covered blades. They looked a little puzzled at out metal shells and brightiron spears, but didn't look worried. I supposed we did look a little ludicrous to somebody who hadn't seen brightiron in action.

“Well,” Sheeyeth said, “poachers.”

“You are trespassing on territory belonging to the Root Spider Hive,” one of the Root Spider hunters said sternly. “Leave at once or face justice.”

“I believe you'll find,” Phaleth said calmly, “that the border between our territories is some way back.”

“Which means that you killed this beast in territory belonging to the Eastern Dancer Hive,” I added.

“Which makes you, as I said, poachers,” Sheeyeth said. “And we have rules for dealing with poachers.”

The Root Spider hunters looked around nervously.

“We... we didn't realise,” one of them said.

“Well, that's too bad,” Sheeyeth said, “and not really something we can afford to just believe from somebody as tricky as a Root Spider, now is it?”

“Us? Tricky?” another hunter snapped. “After what you did? After – ”

“Tress, hush,” the hunter who had spoken first said. “The beast was wounded in our territory, of course.”

“But not killed,” Phaleth pointed out.

“No,” the hunter conceded reluctantly. “Not killed. We did not realise that we had crossed the border. We apologise. Please, accept the kill in apology for the transgression and – ”

“Seriously?” Tress interrupted. “You're apologising to them?”

“Tress, please, not now.”

“Not _now_?! They killed Shetheph! You're grovelling to these horrible sneaks who _killed_ our friend! Do you understand that?!”

“This isn't the time to – ”

“So the Hivenet keeps telling me. It's never the time! Well, I'm tired of waiting for revenge!” The young hunter raised their weapon and charged.

It was the cue we had all been waiting for. Despite the fact that this particular team had never before taken down prey together, our execution was flawless.

The scent of Root Spider wafted about as I dodged a blade which rang instead off my metal shell and pushed my brightiron spear into young flesh. My opponent screeched in pain, and smoke began to rise. It smelled a little like being burned in acid. Root Spider and acid. The last time I'd smelled those things together, I'd been tearing uncontrollably into enemy flesh – and gleefully, I did it again.

Claws were torn out. Guts spilled. I felt a nick against my side; unimportant.

A moment later, my entire world was filled only with pain.

The tiny nick burned as if being eaten with acid. I couldn't control my limbs properly; I twitched, squirmed. Dimly, I recalled a strange, fleshy creature doing just that as I flailed out with a red-painted blade.

It seemed that I'd discovered what sithsil venom felt like.

I didn't like it.

I tried to keep biting, to keep fighting. I wasn't needed, though. The others easily dispatched the remaining poachers and soon we were standing among the Root Spider dead, and behind us an enormous dead beast.

I could hear the others talking, but I couldn't respond. I couldn't control my muscles, I couldn't even feel them through the haze of pain.

“Sethril, are you alright?”

“By the ocean under the hive, it's sithsil venom.”

“Sethril, listen to me. You'll be okay. We all get cut eventually. Ride it out and you'll be okay.”


	20. Chapter 20

Eventually, the pain stopped. Eventually, I was okay.

By then, the others had cut most of the beast into chunks small enough to carry. After discarding the shell and anything else inedible and gorging ourselves on as much meat as possible, we reduced the load to the point where we could almost carry it all back to the hive. There would be some waste, but that couldn't be helped.

We stored the meat away, went back to our normal duties, and pretty much pretended the whole thing hadn't happened. Although the gall of that young hunter to accuse _us_ of killing _their_ friend in an attack against _our_ hive ate at me. We planted the crops, and soon, breeding season came round once more. I felt sort of cheated, having missed out on most of the intervening tidal cycle. I'd put up with the horrible hunger the previous cycle, fallen into stupor before I could actually breed, and stayed under for the more relaxed, well-fed seasons. The crop planting was greatly complicated by the rather severe damage to the tunnels caused by the previous cycle's fighting, so I concentrated on that for the planting and just tried not to focus too much on the actual breeding season until it approached.

And then the hunger was back.

I had a new plan to deal with it that season, which was to just copy everybody else's plan. I didn't spend my time inspecting the stone quality near the intertidal layer, so close to temptation and potential disaster. I honestly wasn't sure that I could handle it. If the attack the previous breeding season had happened later, when I was hungrier and the crop was more mature, I would never have been able to maintain control long enough to get to the invaders. I would've rampaged in the tunnels, and been killed immediately.

Instead, I did what Sheeyeth and Phaleth did. I did what Klesth had done the previous season. I went hunting aboveground.

It was very similar to our normal patrol. We just had to be careful not to be injured. Having experienced the hunger myself, I was under no illusions as to what would happen if one of us bled enough to remind the others that we were made of meat. If I had've been cut with a sithsil-painted weapon during breeding season, I would not have been protected while I waited for the pain to fade. I would've been torn apart while helpless.

We found no more poachers. We found only small animals to kill. We started mixing up our routes, spending less time on the Root Spider border and more in the more prosperous areas.

When I'd first started guarding, I'd thought it dangerous and violent. But that was because I'd never been hunting with breeding adults.

Esheinth was, of course, too busy guarding the crop tunnels to accompany us, and Phaleth was busy in the hive with some duty or other, so Sheeyeth took me hunting with a couple of other hunters I didn't know very well. They were named Pheshissn and Effer, and both were about Sheeyeth's age and level of experience, making me the naïve youngster of the group. It was a position that I was used to occupying.

We headed out in the opposite direction to the Root Spider Hive, scattering far enough to search effectively while close enough to stay in contact. We swept the land for about a quarter-crest before we found something; a flier that couldn't fly. The large beasts were basically a membrane stretched over a light, tough structure of tubes that could be lifted and move on the breeze, with sensory organs and fleshy limbs beneath to grab at unsuspecting prey. Prey like us. We normally only knew them in the context of danger from above during the light time. I'd never hunted one. Hardly anybody had, to my knowledge.

But the one before us was on the ground at night, which was unusual. It was on the ground because the leathery membrane that mysteriously uplifted it was torn and tattered. It loped along the ground on its strange claws. Easy prey.

Assuming, of course, that we could avoid the claws.

Effer had us take an attack formation and called the attack. We raced forward, teeth gnashing; our prey saw us coming, of course, but such beasts are ungainly on the ground, and it couldn't outrun us. It tried anyway.

My first mouthful was one of leather. But somebody bit deeper. Somebody bit into flesh.

I'd love to describe the attack in detail, I really would – my first hunt of an airborne creature, the time we killed a terror of all aboveground taxxons. But I don't really know much of what happened. We bit. We swallowed. The pit inside me demanded more, more; eventually, there was no more meat left. But that didn't stop us. There was still shell, still leather; we cut it with our teeth as best we could, tugged it in different directions to tear it, bent it until it broke. We ate everything.

Only Pheshissn pulled out of the feast early, backing away as soon as the meat was gone. I didn't wonder why; I was merely happy that there would be more for me.

Eventually, though, it was gone, and I realised that I could still smell blood. Taxxon blood.

“Pheshissn?” Sheeyeth's voice was strangled with restrained need.

“Go ahead. Go home.”

“How bad is it?”

“At this stage, does it really matter?” Pheshissn backed farther away from us, and the smell of blood faded a little, but not enough. It didn't smell delicious, exactly – it smelled like survival. We didn't follow, but we didn't leave, either.

“We can't leave you out here. Any predator – ”

“Sheeyeth, Effer, please. You know it's my best chance. I'll... I'll catch you up, okay?”

“Yeah,” Effer said sadly. “See you in the hive, my friend. Let's go, team.”

“Pheshissn...”

“Please just go, Sheeyeth. It... it was a good hunt.”

“And there'll be many more.”

Sheeyeth and Effer both turned, but I didn't leave. I needed something, I needed what that blood could give me. I was dying. That's what hunger felt like; dying.

“Sethril, come on.”

The smell of blood was my whole world.

I rushed forward to meet it.

My prey tried to escape, but what chance did it have? Something screeched behind me; I ignored it. The right side of my body didn't move like it used to, but my wounds were long healed, and my prey wasn't. I ripped, I tore; I swallowed mouthfuls of life-giving food. The two taxxons beside me helped, tearing apart our prey, leaving no trace. No trace.

Only when there was nothing left to smell did it begin to occur to me what we had done.

We stood in complete silence for several skips.

“Let's go,” Effer said. “We need to get back to the hive.”

And we never spoke of it again.


	21. Chapter 21

The actual breeding approached much more quickly than I expected. My eggs grew heavy, my body hot. Luckily, Phaleth was there to give me advice.

“You were presumed dead this time last cycle, weren't you?” the hunter asked while we paced the tunnels of the hive aimlessly, trying to look busy.

“Yeah. Trapped under fallen stone, healing near-fatal damage.”

“Oh, yeah, the scars. Do they affect your mobility?”

“Only a little.”

“Even a little can make a big difference. They're going to be a problem for you. You might want to be extra careful.”

“I was already planning on it.”

“Good. Don't lay eggs, laying is for chumps. You'll get torn apart and they probably won't hatch anyway. Don't go near the center; there'll be plenty of other breeding seasons to play alpha parent. Just try to get in and out alive. That's my advice.”

“That advice applied to every facet of life, Phaleth.”

“Good, then you should have no trouble with it.”

Eventually, we did make our way to the mother pit, drawn by instincts I don't quite understand. Every adult in the hive moved as one, converging on that central location, the heart of our hive. We stepped into living tunnels and didn't even have to tell the living net where to take us – it knew.

I stepped into the mother pit. It was the first time I'd been in it empty. The fleshy space was free of membranes and the pit itself contained only a shallow layer of some kind of slightly pink fluid. Taxxons moved along the bottom of the pit, the sides, and the upper levels near the tunnel entrances. I dropped onto the edge of the pit, balancing easily on the rubbery side as if I was just there to inspect eggs.

More taxxons arrived, and we started to become more agitated. The place was full of walking meat. The place was hot. The pink fluid in the pit was salty and unappetising, but I wanted to touch it more. I wanted to get near the center.

I started to walk toward the middle of the pit, only to be pushed aside by somebody faster and stronger. I came to my senses. Avoid the center, that was important; avoid the worst trouble. I paced the outside, feeling like I was missing something important. My eggs were heavy. Heavy and hot.

Others were pacing the outside with me; it as beginning to feel crowded. Many of them drifted closer to the center. I paced. I waited, restlessly.

Somebody tripped. Somebody walked over them. One snapped in irritation at the other. The other snapped back.

Then, the pit was chaos.

There was blood. Blood and meat. The closer to the center of the pit, the thicker the population, the thicker the violence; but the edge wasn't immune. Somebody tore one of my claws out; I bit at their eyes one by one, blinding them. Somebody behind sank teeth into my attacker's middle, and together, we tore them apart. Somebody walked right over me to scavenge parts of the kill. I took a bit of their underbelly, and suddenly, the area was think with taxxons; trying to get a grip on my hunger, I fled.

But there was nowhere to flee to. Around me were taxxons. Under me were taxxons. Above me were taxxons. Taxxons in the pit, taxxons on the edge, taxxons up the walls, all of us imprisoned within the living net. I walked over somebody for whom the weight of eggs inside them had become too much; they were tearing themselves open, ripping a hole through which to excrete the gelatinous little orbs. I sprayed my seed at the sight of them,and I wasn't the only one; four other taxxons were moving over the mother, fighting for space. The mother was crawling away, attempting to be out of the way before we finished spraying and followed the scent of blood leaking from their new wound. They didn't make it. We clambered over the eggs to tear at the mother, to eat.

I was bleeding, I knew, from the wound where one of my claws had been torn off. So my best defense was to make sure that somebody else was bleeding more. I did. I thrashed and bit and tore. For the most part, it wasn't a problem; somebody was always bleeding, and whenever there was a quiet moment, another potential mother would cut themselves open to drop their eggs and immediately be swamped by taxxons looking to spray or eat.

Plenty of people were simply trampled underfoot as well. I tried to stay near the edge, which wasn't hard as the continual fighting for the center tended to force people out; occasionally, somebody fighting for more central space would be thrown under our feet. Whether they were able to get up again or not depended largely on how injured they were. One unfortunate individual was thrown down so hard that three legs broke on landing and, when they tried to stand, they ran straight into somebody's teeth.

They didn't last long.

Only when the pit beneath us was covered in eggs and we were exhausted did things begin to calm down. People stopped attempting motherhood once there was no room for more eggs, and we struggled to spray the widest area possible for awhile, but eventually, we were too tired to struggle against each other any more. The mother pit heaved, jiggled, nudged us toward the walls, which opened up at our touch. Dazed and not entirely sure where the urge that had gripped us mere skips ago had gone, we all wandered off to find somewhere quiet to rest, leaving our young in the tender care of the living net.


	22. Chapter 22

The crop tunnels were opened. We fed. Life in the hive calmed down once more.

It was time to begin the post-breeding stone repairs. There were very few repairs requested by the builders, as the lack of tunnel racing meant that not much had needed altering. So most of our duty was related to the vulnerable top and bottom areas of the intertidal layer.

My job was to help care for the most difficult area, where the stone met the ocean. Technically, it had been my job the previous cycle as well, but since I'd been in a healing stupor at the time, I hadn't been able to perform it.

I took a roundabout route down to the ocean. I wanted to check on the damage the invasion had done, to wee how it was healing.

I could identify the damage in several areas from memory. A hole in the floor, where I'd tunnelled to a deeper layer to avoid guards. Too-thin walls, where invaders had torn into them on a hunger rampage.

The cave-in where I'd destroyed a hairpin turn and fallen into my stupor.

I moved on. The damage would take many tidal cycles to heal properly, but at least the tunnels were still usable. It could have been so much worse.

Down to the ocean layer.

Down to where the Root Spider Hive had invaded.

The bottom layers of crop tunnels were, of course, a complete mess. They would take many more cycles of care and attention before they were even properly stable, let alone healthy.

But... why?

The lower levels were relatively useless for food production. They took as much energy to grow crops in as the crops returned. We farmed them only to stop them from dissolving, but that seemed more like a matter of principle than anything. Would it really matter if we just let them dissolve into the ocean?

We still had no idea how the invaders had survived long enough in the ocean to crawl up into our crop tunnels, but they had. If we hadn't been putting so much work into maintaining those levels, they would've had no way up. They would simply have died in the water. Our farmers would still be alive. Sure, we wouldn't have found out what sneaky traitors the Root Spider Hive were, but that was a small price to pay when measured in Eastern Dancer lives.

Why have the lower levels at all? Why not just cut off access to the ocean entirely?

We'd lose the occasional incautious farmer who fell through, yes. But that was simply a risk of the job. People hardly ever fell into the ocean; we'd lost enough in the attack to supply dozens of cycles' worth of accidental falls. And now that our enemy could make that journey, there was nothing stopping them from trying again. It was infeasible to guard the crop tunnels. There were too many exits to the open ocean.

Of course, the invaders hadn't exactly been in good shape when they'd climbed up. Whatever method they'd used to protect themselves had been far from perfect. They'd been bleeding and half-blind when they climbed into our home. They couldn't possibly have expected to live through the attack. How stupid did one have to be, to try such a tactic? Well, it probably wasn't stupidity if they knew and accepted that they would die. If they really thought that trying to hurt us was worth their lives... well, that just made their hive more dangerous. I pictured those warriors making that choice, diving into the unknown dark. How much courage would that journey take? So long underwater, without tunnels to guide you, just trusting that you could stay on course and not be eaten by any big predator before reaching your destination? I tried to imagine invading the Root Spider Hive like that. I couldn't.

I dipped a claw in the dark water and remembered that time, when they'd crawled into our tunnels and I'd tried to warn the guards, and I'd had to rush down the tunnels...

I was frightened, hungry, half-mad. Each of those invaders must have felt so much worse.

It was impossible to be stupid enough to make such a decision, or courageous enough, I realised. It was one thing to give your life for your hive, but on odds that slim?

I remembered trying to get Esheinth to listen, failing; doing the only thing I could, banking on one slim chance.

Diving into that water wasn't an act of stupidity or of courage.

It was an act of pure desperation.


	23. Chapter 23

I wanted vengeance. I wanted justice. I wanted to inflict pain upon the Root Spider Hive that doubled the pain that they had caused us, and then doubled it again.

The anger knotted and burned at my gut like hunger. Like hunger, it could not be stopped, could not be denied.

But it could be directed.

The invaders were clearly powerless over their fate. Nobody signs onto a plan like that thinking it's a good idea. There were just too many problems, too low a chance of success. And while I was happy to cut the people responsible for the attack into tiny, tiny pieces, I wanted to make sure that somewhere in that rampage I managed to get the right people.

I needed to know what exactly was happening inside the Root Spider Hive.

I wove my reasoning and my proposal into the Hivenet, where it sparked immediate, intense debate.

My plan was to do something that was, on the face of it, incredibly stupid, but the risk was low considering the potential payoff. I wanted to go to the Root Spider Hive, unarmed and without threats, and simply ask them what was happening. This was immediately contested by people who pointed out that if I set one claw over the territory line, the Root Spider Hive would kill me.

I pointed out that the loss of a single person for such a mission was negligible. I was willing to take the risk, so why shouldn't I?

Somebody proposed sending somebody more equipped for the task; a hunter or warrior. My insistence that such a thing could be seen as confrontational and would just put the messenger at even greater risk was largely ignored. The Hivenet struggled to decide between two choices – send a warrior, or send nobody.

My own group of supporters who believed that I should be the one to go was very, very small.

Only when 'send a warrior' was clearly winning did a dramatic shift take place. Those who wanted to send nobody became aware that they were losing and seemed to decide that if anybody was going to die, it should be the fool who proposed the plan; suddenly, the push to send me gained a lot of popularity. The sudden increase helped it gain even more until finally, but narrowly, the Hivenet made a decision.

Sheeyeth, Phaleth and Esheinth volunteered to escort me to the territory border. Knowing that they didn't expect to see me alive again, I let them.

We kitted up as if it was just another hunt in the general direction of the border. We put on our metal shells and took our brightiron spears. Sheeyeth insisted that we pain our claws in sithsil venom paste, although we didn't usually bother if we were carrying brightiron weapons.

Then we headed out.

We moved slowly, methodically, scanning every area we passed thoroughly for prey. To be honest, I would've preferred to move faster, to try to get the whole thing over with. But if the others wanted to treat the journey as a hunting venture, I didn't want to stop them, and that meant respecting Sheeyeth's command. We all knew that we couldn't actually make a big kill, because we coudn't immediately take it back to the hive. We had to get to the border.

All too soon, we did.

To Phaleth and Sheeyeth's protests, I took off my metal shell at the border. Esheinth understood, though.

“Sethril won't be able to fight any Root Spider hunters or scouts,” the young farmer explained, “so being armed is irrelevant. The only chance for survival is to not look like a soldier or poacher. So Sethril can't go in with weapons.”

“Exactly,” I said, handing my brightiron spear and associated acid containers to my former trainee. “I'm going to go in as a peaceful messenger, and I need to look like it. If they have reason to suspect otherwise, they have an excuse to kill me. I need to show them I mean no harm.”

“How many root spider invaders did you kill in the tunnels, again?”

“They don't need to know about that.”

“They'll kill you anyway,” Phaleth said.

“Probably. You lot look after the hive, now.”

“We always do,” Sheeyeth said, taking hold of my primary claws. “Good luck on your mission.”

“There's no chance of talking you out of this, I suppose?” Phaleth asked.

“None whatsoever.”

“Didn't think so. If I couldn't convince you in the Hivenet I'd hardly convince you here.”

“Hey, Sethril's come back from the dead once before,” Esheinth pointed out, without conviction.

“Indeed,” Sheeyeth said, with complete conviction. “You have no idea how many times I've been certain this little tunnel stray was going to die on a hunt. Kid has some kind of magic shell of luck.”

“You never told me you thought I was going to die,” I said.

“Of course I didn't. Didn't mean I didn't think it. Now, don't you have a mission?”

I saluted my hunt leader and stepped over the border. The others all stepped back.

“Good hunting,” I said.

“You too, friend.”

I waited until the others were out of sight before I rubbed the sithsil venom off my claws. I knew that Sheeyeth would worry about me going in so defenceless, but no weapons meant no weapons. Sithsil venom was a hunter's tool, and I could not afford to look like a hunter.

I'd never been to the Root Spider Hive before. I knew the general direction. I also knew that my navigation skills were not nearly good enough to reliably find it. But that didn't matter – if the Root Spiders were anything like us, it wouldn't be long before a hunting party looking for trouble found me, and they could escort me.

Unless they decided to kill me. Which was a distinct possibility.

Under normal circumstances, crossing a border like I had just done wouldn't be all that dangerous. While poachers or suspected spies could be killed, it was far more common to simply integrate captives into one's own hive. Defectors who intentionally approached and surrendered to a new hive were treated with the same protocol as enemies who surrendered during an attack – either they were taken to the victorious hive, or they were told to go home (which in the case of an attack might be a death sentence, depending on how badly the hive was damaged). Except in the case of specific types of criminals, captives were not killed. It simply wasn't done.

But there was some very bad feeling between our two hives at that moment. And when hunters found me, they had good enough grounds to suspect me of being a hunter or a spy that they might kill me as either. Or they might believe me, and still kill me using that as an excuse.

And all that was assuming that I lived long enough for a hunting party to find me. I could just as easily be killed by random wildlife, hungry and happy to encounter a lone, scarred, unarmed taxxon.

I headed off into the territory of the Root Spider Hive, trying to look capable enough not to be a target of predators but harmless enough not to be a target of hunters. I was pretty sure that whatever look I was attempting, I had failed. Fortunately, the area seemed largely devoid of wildlife; presumably the Root Spider Hive had hunted excessively along their border in the hopes of catching poachers, much as we had.

I didn't know how far from the border the Root Spider Hive was, but the border itself was well out of sight when I heard the feet of taxxons. I was down between two hills when I heard them on the other side. They stopped, clearly hearing me, muttered briefly to each other, and started moving again. I immediately adopted a posture of surrender, and waited.

Two approached from either side, all armed with sithsil-painted weapons. They looked cautious and kept well back, clearly suspecting a trap. I didn't blame them. Dangling a helpless enemy as bait to lure people into an ambush was a pretty risky tactic, but it had been done.

One of the taxxons did a quick scout of the immediate area while the others waited,weapons levelled toward me. I didn't move. When the hunter came back and gave the all-clear, all four of them closed in.

“An Eastern Dancer poacher, huh?” one asked in the tone of somebody who'd just won the tunnel races after being unaware that they'd entered.

“A am not a poacher. I am a messenger. I want to talk to your hive.”

“Oh, you want to talk. _Now_ you want to talk. How convenient for you.”

“This situation is anything but convenient.” I maintained my posture of surrender. I couldn't stop them from killing me, but if they did, they were going to have to unambiguously kill a helpless prisoner. I wasn't giving them the satisfaction of anything else.

“It's a spy,” another hunter said. “Kill it.”

“No!” said a third. “We should give the messenger a chance.”

“Are you kidding? After what they did to – ”

“Exactly. They're a _messenger_. Don't you perhaps want to hear some messages?”

There was a slight pause. Then, the hunter who did most of the talking turned to me. “Eastern Dancer. Your name?”

“Sethril.”

“You're coming with us. You do anything vaguely threatening and you die instantly.”

“Understood.”

I let the hunters lead me back to their hive. The first part of my mission was complete. I'd gotten in, and I wasn't dead.

But the really difficult part would be trying to get out again.

The Root Spider Hive was topped, like every hive, with a large tree. Theirs had a shorter central shaft than ours, splitting sooner into many smaller branches which spread out and sank towards the ground in roughly even bunches. It really did look like a root spider.

The hive was slightly different in shape to our own, but the design principles were the same. I was led past angry-looking and extremely suspicious guards who seemed to be waiting for an excuse to cut me, through a complicated labyrinth, and into a small chamber with a single normal exit leading to the labyrinth and a single living tunnel, presumably leading to the hive proper. The hunters left me alone there. I supposed that there was no point posting a guard; where was I going to go? I couldn't access the living net and the only other exit lead to tunnels full of angry soldiers.

I waited.

I hadn't really expected to get so far. I probably should've prepared a proper speech. Had a more detailed plan. But it as a little hard to plan anything too sophisticated under such conditions.

After awhile, a soldier stepped out of the living net. They were heavily armed. I immediately adopted a posture of surrender again, just in case.

“Hello, Sethril,” they said. “You've grown somewhat.”

My posture must have shown that I didn't recognise them, because they looked faintly amused and continued, “I'm Ssentris. We met at the tunnel races once.”

I had a vague memory of being quite rude to a Root Spider attendant. In retrospect, I probably should've been more polite.

“Of course,” I replied. “Good to see you again.”

“There's no need to lie,” Ssentris said. “Why have you come here?”

“For information. I'm a messenger from the Eastern Dancer Hive. We fear that we have incomplete information on your hive, and – ”

“You're a spy.”

“No, I'm not. I'm not after any information that you're not willing to give.”

“Oh, so your Hive's had a sudden change of heart? You've decided to play fair, now? Sorry, not buying it.” Ssentris moved closer, the end of a sithsil-painted spear pausing a mere fraction from my face. “We can't afford to give Eastern Dancers chances. Not any more. Not after what you did to us.”

My natural reaction to that was of course fury – what _we_ did to _them_? They were the aggressors! We just defended ourselves! But I squashed it down. I couldn't afford to get angry, not in such a tenuous position. “I am only here to talk,” I said neutrally.

“Sure you are. Get all the information you need, head back out to your own hive to plan to kill us all. Look, Sethril, you want information? This is basically what's happening. The Hivenet is almost entirely convinced that you are a spy. We're going to kill you, do you understand? The one reason that you were brought into this hive, the only reason, is because you can be useful to us. And this is your one chance to prove that you mean us no harm. You're either a spy or a defector. If you're a spy, you die. It's as simple as that. You want to prove your loyalty to us? Then this is your chance. Give us information that we need to protect ourselves.”

Defect? Spend the rest of my life squirrelled away in some labourer tunnel, working to help those who did such damage to my own? No thanks. But there was more than one way to gain information.

“What do you need to know?” I asked.

“We need to know how the invaders survived so long in the ocean. We need to know how they made that journey safely, eaten by neither predators nor acid. They were in pretty bad shape when they arrived, but they were alive – do you understand how much of a security risk this causes? The crop tunnels can't be guarded. It's impractical. Tell us how they did it. Tell us, and you might have a chance.”

What? That was the sort of information that we needed from them. How did Ssentris expect me to know such a thing? Why did the soldier care about Eastern Dancer Hive security flaws, except to exploit them further? This was the sort of strategy that I'd expect my own hive to –

The anger. The questions. The paranoia surrounding my surrender.

Everything started to make sense.

“Ssentris,” I said cautiously, “were you recently invaded from the ocean?”

The blade in my face waved emphatically. I, like a good little prisoner, didn't move at all, and just barely managed to keep my eye. “You know!” Ssentris roared. “Don't think you can play ignorant here! You sent an army, you killed our hivemates! My friends! You destroyed crops and condemned us to starve!”

Doctored messages in the Hivenet. Mad, injured invaders smelling strongly of the Root Spider Hive. The Root Spiders angry at us, as if they were the victims.

It didn't make all that much sense. But I had something, some kind of lead there in the Root Spider Hive. I had to follow it.

And I'd already thrown my life away by going on the stupid mission. I'd been living on borrowed time since the invasion, really. So Ssentris' threats weren't important – the real question wasn't about how I could survive. The real question was, how much could I get done before I died?

“If you allow me to see your crop tunnels,” I said carefully, “I will tell you everything I know about the invaders.”

“You,” Ssentris growled savagely, “are not in a position to bargain. The ruined harvest has left everybody in this hive hungry. We're not starving yet, but don;t think my hivemates won't say no to taking a little food back from the bodies of our invaders.”

Ew, disgusting. Still, far from the first time that somebody had threatened to eat me.

“Yu're not in a position to bargain either,” I said gently. “Would I have come here if my life wasn't already forfeit? I can probably help you, Ssentris, but not without more information. If I don't see the crop tunnels, I can't be sure what's going on.”

“You've come to do more damage.”

“If things are as bad as you say, what more damage can be done? Besides, I'm sure you can rustle up some armed guards to accompany me. You seem to have a lot to spare.”

Ssentris was silent for several skips, before saying, “Wait here.” The soldier climbed back into the living net, and I was once again alone.


	24. Chapter 24

After a period of time long enough to make me suspect that my captors have forgotten about me, three young Root Spiders appeared at the cavern entrance armed with long spears. They were slightly different in design to our own, but they were tipped with red paste. One wrong move and I'd be paralysed with pain, unable to stop the Root Spiders from taking me apart.

“One wrong move and you die,” one of them said unnecessarily.”

“So pretty much the same situation I've been in since arrival,” I said. “Fair enough.”

I followed one of them into the living net while the other took up position behind me, spear ready. The spears were similar to the kind that we used to guard crop tunnels, so my guards were probably farmers. That was good. I hardly felt any sort of rapport with them, but at least they would recognise basic diagnostic behaviours like tapping the wall as non-aggressive, and wouldn't kill me for it.

We stepped out of the living net and into the tunnels. Being in unfamiliar crop tunnels was extremely disconcerting. Not only was I perpetually lost, but the Root Spider Hive seeded and grazed their moss a little differently than we did. It looked wrong.

“Where did the fighting take place?” I asked the guards.

One of them took the lead, the other two falling in behind me to stab if necessary. We headed down, deep into the intertidal layer. We kept moving until we found... well, a complete mess.

Like us, the Root Spiders were clearly trying to repair the damage with the current season's crop. But they weren't dealing with a few cave-ins. Whatever had happened in those tunnels had penetrated deep, and had been extremely violent. There were holes five or six layers of tunnel deep, holes that ruined the structural integrity of the bottom of the hive, that threatened to pull away entire sections of the crop and let it drop into the water below to dissolve. It would take many tide cycles to repair. It might take a lifetime to repair.

“This is very extensive damage,” I noted tonelessly.

“We didn't know what was happening,” one of the guards confessed. “We heard something, but it was too deep. It was everywhere. Everybody experienced enough to know was banned from the tunnels, and by the time we figured it out...”

“I understand. I've seen enough. Take me back, please. I'll help you.”

“You're defecting?” one of the guards asked hopefully. They were so young. Had I ever been that young? That timid?

“I swear to you, I'll do everything I can to help you get the people responsible for this.”

“You've seen enough, then?” Ssentris was waiting for us back in the little room. “Ready to help us?”

“Yes, I am. I fear that my anger has been misdirected. And yours, too.”

“Oh, this ought to be good.”

“Do you know what's happening in the Eastern Dancer Hive right now?”

“As you know, we've had no communication.”

“For over a tide cycle, the Eastern Dancers have been trying to find a way to get vengeance on the hive that killed so many of our young farmers in a cowardly attack from the very ocean itself. We had no idea how the attackers survived long enough in the sea to make it to our tunnels. If that's the information you want, I still can't help you.”

“You agreed – ”

“To tell you everything I know. This is what I know – today is the first day that I have heard of an attack on the Root Spider Hive. Our last contact with Root Spiders, not counting finding the occasional poacher, was when a whole lot of them, badly damaged by the acid of the ocean, crawled up into our crop tunnels and began destroying them in a feeding rampage. They were barely recognisable as taxxons, but we knew that they were Root Spider from the smell. My bet friend was killed that day. The one I was supposed to keep out of trouble.

“This is what I know about the invaders, Ssentris – nothing. But this is what I think. I think that neither Root Spiders nor Eastern Dancers staged an invasion on the other's hive.

“I don't know who, why or how, but I think somebody is playing us against each other.”

“No, that... this story is ridiculous.”

“Pretty much everything about this situation is ridiculous.”

“We can't believe you. How can I believe you?”

“Send a messenger to my hive to verify my story. Use my name; they'll let you in.”

“It would be so much easier to kill you right now.”

“And if I'm right, and both our hives let the ones responsible for this get away with it? Would that be worth it?”

Ssentris hesitated for a few skips. Finally, the soldier said, “I have to commune with the Hivenet. You two, take our new hivemate down below and get them acquainted. I don't trust you, Sethril, but you seem to have lived up to your side of the agreement, and it's not my choice. So welcome to the Root Spider Hive.”


	25. Chapter 25

Of course, my new hivemates didn't trust me. At all. Which made it a little difficult to integrate into the hive; not just because everybody around me was generally unfriendly and suspicious, but because it was difficult for the Hivenet to decide just what tasks to allocate me. Nobody wanted to put me on any task that was particularly vital to the survival of the hive which was, unfortunately, almost every task. They also didn't want me straying too far from the hive because although nobody would say it openly, a lot of them still strongly suspected me of being a spy, and were worried that I'd run back to the Eastern Dancers with important Root Spider Hive information.

Not that there was much important Root Spider Hive information. Most of their farmland had been destroyed and they were very angry about it. That was pretty much it.

In the end, the Hivenet weighed up my farming expertise against the fact that repairing the farmland would take too long for sabotage to be a useful goal even for a spy, and gave me my old job. I was paired with another farmer about my age named Ephesh, who at least had the courtesy to pretend that we were actually farming partners instead of behaving like the custodian that the Hivenet had obviously assigned them to be, and for that I was appreciative.

Ephesh had no more reason to trust me than anybody else in the hive, but we bonded over our work. I taught my new partner an Eastern Dancer technique for filling in the larger gaps in the stonework called sculpted overgrazing – the moss grew very quickly, resulting in stone that was extremely fragile but neatly plugged the gaps to act as a proper framework for steady repairs in the next tidal cycle.

“It'll be difficult to move in while it's so fragile,” Ephesh said in concern as we paced one such unintentional cavern.

“It's probably best not to let inexperienced hunters deal with it until it's a little stronger. The first time I took my first pair of trainees over fragile stone, one of them fell right through.”

Ephesh laughed. “My supervisor did that to me on purpose, dumped me right in the ocean.”

“Mine too! A little irresponsible, if you ask me, since then you have to repair that stone.”

“My supervisor made me do that too. Said it was a test, if I could make the stone I'd fallen through as strong as the stone around it then I would pass.”

“Wait, down near the ocean?”

“Of course.”

“Wow. Harsh. In my old hive, that was considered the hardest part stone to repair. I'd barely qualified to treat it before I left.”

“You don't talk about them much. The Eastern Dancers, I mean.”

“I talk about them all the time. I'm teaching you an Eastern Dancer technique right now.”

“Yeah, for work. I mean casually.”

“All that's in the past now.”

“Everything's in the past, Sethril.”

“Yeah, but... look, everyone here already thinks I'm a spy. Going around expressing affection for another hive, especially one that most of my hivemates think of as an enemy hive, isn't really going to help.”

“Yeah.” Ephesh paused. “Sethril... I can trust you, can't I?”

“Is any answer I give to that actually going to give you more information?”

“I guess not.” Ephesh moved uncertainly forward and tried to focus on our task, and I was reminded powerfully of Klesth and myself. I'd watched Klesth much as Ephesh must be watching me; my instincts said they could be trusted, but the facts didn't add up...

“You want to hear about the Eastern Dancers?” I asked. “My best friend growing up actually wanted to be a Root Spider.”

“A Root Spider? Why?”

“Something about food availability, I think.”

Ephesh laughed harshly at that. Food was scarce on the Root Spider Hive, nearly half our diet being supplied by the hunters. We were both terrified of what would happen come breeding season.

“They kept trying to convince me to defect with them, and I refused. I couldn't understand why they didn't think the Eastern Dancers were good enough. I told them that they needed a good reason to defect, that they couldn't just someday decide 'Hey, I think I'll be a Root Spider!' Do you know what their response was?”

“What?”

“'Why not?'”

“And now your friend is still an Eastern Dancer, and you moved instead?”

“My friend died in the attack, when the invaders who we thought were Root Spiders came up through our tunnels.”

Ephesh was silent a moment. “I still don't think it makes sense for two hives to be attacked simultaneously by people that they think are from the other hive.”

“I'm hoping that works in my favour, It's just too ludicrous a story to make up.”

“So let me get this straight. Your friend tried to convince you to defect to the Root Spider Hive for a long time, partly based on the food availability, and you refused. Then they're killed, supposedly by the very hive they'd been so interested in, and you end up becoming a Root Spider right when we have no food?”

“It sounds kind of like a dance plot when you put it like that.”

“Kind of?”

“Wow. You're right. I'm living in a dance plot.”

“I've decided I trust you,” Ephesh said decisively.

“You do? Why? Because frankly. Most of what I say sounds ludicrous.”

“Whoever attacked us, Eastern Dancer or otherwise, did this damage to our hive. I've seen you work. I don't think you'd let this kind of abuse to stone stand. I think that if you knew who did something like this, you'd share the information. I think that even if you came to us as a spy, you'd defect the moment you saw this.”

“You're saying that you believe me because you have faith in my high level of farming-based morality?”

“... Sethril, is there another kind?”


	26. Chapter 26

In the Hivenet, I saw much of a repeat of the debate that had happened in the Eastern Dancer Hivenet and sent me over in the first place. I was insistent that a diplomatic contingent be sent to the Eastern Dancer Hive to verify my claim that they, too, had been attacked, and to perhaps start a movement towards identifying and gaining revenge upon the instigators. While everybody agreed with this in principle, the mission was delayed by several concerns. The first, of course, was that I was a spy laying some sort of cunning trap to send my new hivemates to their deaths. That idea quickly died when nobody could produce any sort of explanation as to how that would work or help the Eastern Dancer Hive in any way – setting up some sort of long term trap, certainly, but simply luring out and killing some messengers would hardly be useful. If I was a spy, then, the messengers should be safe.

Of course, if I wasn't, it was a highly dangerous mission. Most likely, the Eastern Dancers would kill our contingent on sight. I was pretty sure they'd be fine if they mentioned my name, but I couldn't guarantee it – nor could I guarantee that they wouldn't be captured and integrated into the Eastern Dancer Hive as the Root Spiders had done to me. And trading members like that with no information actually getting back to our hive wasn't remotely useful.

At the beginning of hightide season, a rather drastic decision was made.

“You're in the negotiating party,” Ssentris informed me gruffly one day.

“I... I am? Is that really a good idea?”

“There are no 'good ideas' in this scenario. But the Hivenet has decided that the risk you pose is minimal compared to the risk that the Eastern Dancer Hive poses, and most of the people you interact with actually trust you, so you're coming.” Ssentris hesitated. “Of course, I'm captain for the expedition, so I have veto power.”

Well, that was that then. Ssentris wouldn't want me along, so I wouldn't have to confront my old friends in the Eastern Dancer Hive. But then, why tell me at all? “So, what are you going to do?”

“Well... I'm generally good at reading people. It's a gift, it's why I make a good racer attendant.”

“I vaguely recall you telling me that you were an attendant because you wanted to keep your friend out of trouble.”

“Technically true, but to be entirely honest, I said it because I saw that you felt responsible for keeping another racing brat out of trouble. I can tell by watching people. It's a gift. Yet somehow, you're a bit of a mystery, and I don't like mysteries.”

“I'm a pretty clear tunnel.”

“I thought the same thing when I first spotted you. But when you walked into our hive, I knew that I'd initially read you wrong. I don't do that much. But I hadn't seen you as one who had much patience for sneaking or lies.”

“I'm not. I don't have the memory or subtlety for it.”

“And yet, you walked right in here acting and talking like a spy. No matter what you say, your story makes no sense. There's no other explanation. But... I've watched you, since you came into this hive. And I'm still getting the no-nonsense vibe from you. Which leaves two options. The first is that you are an extremely talented and very dangerous spy who is an imminent danger to this hive.”

“... and the second?”

“That I'm not misreading. The situation is as it stands, but maybe you're not responsible. Maybe you're just an unknowing pawn in an Eastern Dancer game. I could be wrong, but I've decided to bank on you, Sethril. I've decided to believe that you're just ignorant instead of deceitful. So yes, I'm taking you. I'm taking you because I believe that if I'm right and the Eastern Dancer Hive is to blame for all this, then you don't know that... and when you see it, that I can count on you. I'm taking you because I need your eyes in that hive to figure out what exactly by the ocean under the hive is going on. Do you think you can do that?”

“Are you asking me to be a spy?”

“Of course not. I'm asking you to be an attendant.”

“Can I request that my farming partner, Ephesh, be assigned to the team?”

“A farmer? Why?”

“Because our pressing problem right now is crops. An expert eye – and by that I mean an expert eye that you can trust more than mine – on the Eastern Spider crops could be helpful and informative.”

“Fine. Your friend can come. But I don't think I need to tell you that I'll be keeping a careful eye on you.”

“Just like everybody else, then.”


	27. Chapter 27

The journey to the border was a tense and silent one.

It was strange to be aboveground again. I hadn't expected to be allowed anywhere near the hive entrance for cycles at least, probably ever. There were too many people who thought I was a spy waiting to run home. And yet now, they were escorting me back to my former home.

As I had done on my first border crossing, we disarmed before entering hostile territory.

The party contained five individuals – Ssentris, our captain; Ephesh and myself; and two guards I didn't know called Keesh and Tileth. I didn't think it was a good idea to bring military personnel, but of course, nobody listened to what I thought.

Above the Root Spider Hive was still alien to me, but as soon as we crossed the border, I was in familiar territory. I knew where I was. I knew where the Eastern Dancer Hive was. I knew how long it would take to get there and what predators to watch out for.

Ssentris sensed the change in my demeanour immediately. “Spent a lot of time on this border, Sethril?”

There was no point in denying it. “Yes.”

“Well, hopefully now your experience can help us instead of hurt us. Sethril, take the lead. Everybody else, fall in. Nobody attack anything; if they take us for poachers, the mission can't succeed. Let's go.”

We headed towards the Eastern Dancer Hive, making good time since we weren't stopping to hunt. After about an eighth-crest of travel, Ssentris sidled up to me.

“I expected this area to be much more thoroughly patrolled, especially at this time of the cycle.”

“It is. We're probably being watched, either for the Eastern Dancers to gauge our intent, or find an excuse to kill us.”

“That's comforting.”

“We all knew this job had risk.”

“So, is there a safe way to draw them out?”

“Not that I can think of. I think our best tactic is to just keep heading for the hive. They'll have to confront us eventually.”

We were about a three-quarter way to the hive, in a valley between two hills, when the Eastern Dancers surrounded us.

There had been some changes since I'd left.

Each member of the seven-person party was encased in a metal shell, but finer and more ornate than the simple casings we had made for ourselves at first. They carried brightiron spears, but each hunter carried three or four of them, as if expecting to wield many at once... or lose some in battle. Their metal shells contained spikes and sharp edges, and every sharp or pointy part was covered in sithsil venom paste.

Their leader swaggered down the hill toward us. They looked young under all the metal. But I of all people knew better than to underestimate the young.

“This is your invading army?” they asked in a voice I recognised, although I'd never heard it quite so dispassionate. “Disappointing.”

“We're here to talk,” Ssentris said calmly. Our captain hadn't adopted a posture of surrender, but it was a very nonthreatening one all the same.

“Sure, because your hive has been real chatty so far.”

“We come in peace, Esheinth,” I spoke up. “We're here to speak to the Eastern Dancer Hive.”

The Eastern Dancer hunt leader dropped the spears and rushed over to link claws with mine. “Sethril! You're alive!”

“Of course I'm alive. Unexpectedly showing up alive is what I do.”

“Did they hurt you?”

“No.”

“Oh, Sheeyeth is going to be so smug about this...”

“Where is Sheeyeth? Why are you a hunt leader?”

“Sethril,” Ssentris said pointedly, “if you are finished fraternising with the Eastern Dancers, perhaps we could see to our mission?”

“Sorry, captain.” I fell back into place. Esheinth looked from me to the stern Root Spider hunt leader and, with a gesture of one claw, we were led toward the Eastern Dancer Hive.

“Are we safe?” Ssentris asked me quietly as we walked.

“I cannot vouch for most of these hunters, but Esheinth... I think that so long as we do nothing overtly dangerous, we are safe with Esheinth.”

“The jumped-up hunt leader?”

That jumped-up hunt leader has reason to believe that extending me an uncharacteristically large measure of trust might be a good idea.”

“Let me guess: you saved their life?”

“Not exactly. When the Eastern Dancer Hive was attacked, they weren't damaged as badly as our own hive. This was partly due to the size, but partly due to how quickly the attack was stopped. The problem, of course, was that nobody expected an attack from the ocean. Nobody knew that it was possible. Most of the guards had no idea what they were detecting, and by the time they would realise it, there would already be so much damage done.”

“Yeah, we had the same problem.”

“It was my first cycle of breeding age. Esheinth was guarding the tunnel. Against protocol, they let me touch a claw to the wall, but they still wouldn't believe me. Yet, I needed to get the guards down there. I decided that the most expedient way to do so was to give them a rampaging adult to chase.”

“You would've been skewered before you got into the tunnel.”

“Normally, yes. Esheinth hesitated. I got past.”

“Weakness like that could destroy so much crop...”

“And yet, that 'weakness' allowed us to engage the invaders quickly. It was high-risk, but so is escorting us to the hive like this.”

“So what you're saying is that coming to our hive wasn't your first crazy suicidal adventure?”

“It was not.”

“Do you have a death wish or something?”

“Not that I'm aware of. I think I just spend far too much time in desperate situations.”

“Don't we all, Sethril. Don't we all.”


	28. Chapter 28

Esheinth sent a runner ahead so that by the time we arrived at the hive, we were expected. Forewarned, the guards let us through with minimal fuss, although they made us wait in the little cavern through which the hive was accessed through the living net for quite some time. I admit I took some amusement in the discomfort of my teammates, going through what I'd gone through to enter the Root Spider Hive.

The Eastern Dancer Hive eventually agreed to speak with us and led us farther into the hive. Sheeyeth was assigned to us; I didn't want to know what the hunter had gone through in order to secure that job. It could hardly be coincidence. Sheeyeth had fought for it.

I was expecting an Esheinth-worthy happy reunion, some catching up, perhaps a little reminiscing. I was disappointed.

Sheeyeth's eyes took in out entire contingent as we were led into a secured cavern to talk. Those eyes skimmed right over me as if I was a stranger. Stepping forward would be highly unprofessional, so I remained in place while my old captain addressed my new one.

“I am Sheeyeth, and the Hivenet has appointed me to deal with you.”

“Ssentris, of the Root Spider Hive. We have come to clear up certain ambiguous issues that have been brought to our attention.”

“Ambiguous issues? Like crossing defined borders in wartime?”

“We broke no law.”

“No, you've come in peacefully to spy on us.”

“If we were going to send spies, we would be a little more creative about it, I think.”

“If you think that the old 'my story is too unbelievable for a lie so you must believe me' trick is going to work here, you're mistaken. Just let me get that out of the way before we begin.”

“It is a little unbelievable, at least for us.” Ssentris hesitated. “Were you attacked from the ocean a couple of tidy cycles back?”

Sheeyeth froze. As if on cue, the guards around us readied their weapons.

“I'm not playing games with you, Ssentris. We're done here.”

“I'm playing no game. The answer is very important. Were you attacked?”

“You know we were! They were Root Spider warriors! Even under the acid, the stench was undeniable! Is that why you're here? To gauge our losses, see how well your attack did? You are aware that we don't tolerate spies?”

“We're not here to spy, we're here to give and receive messages. We, too, were attacked.”

“You attacked yourselves? Seems a little complicated.”

“No, you did. At least, according to the attackers' scent.”

Sheeyeth's voice was low and dangerous. “Excuse me? Are you accusing us of attacking the Root Spider Hive without provocation?”

“Perhaps. Did you?”

“Both of you,” I interrupted, “please – ”

“Shut up, Sethril,” my past and present captains snapped in unison.

“We're done here,” Sheeyeth said. “Guards, escort our guests out of the hive. If they tarry in Eastern Dancer land, treat them as spies.”

“Sheeyeth,” I said. “Please, give me a few ticks of your time? Alone?”

“I'm not leaving you alone with our host for even a few ticks,” Ssentris objected. “I don't trust you that much.”

“Nor would I put myself in such a vulnerable position with one who so clearly cannot be trusted,” Sheeyeth said acidly.

“Then I request that Phaleth be on the team to escort us out,” I said desperately. I could count on Esheinth, but apparently something had turned Sheeyeth against me. What of my other friend in the Eastern Dancer Hive? I had to know what was going on. I needed somebody to explain.

“Don't listen to that request,” Ssentris said immediately. “If you're trying not to look like a spy, Sethril, you're doing a really bad job of it.”

“I don't think Phaleth wants to see you right now,” Sheeyeth said.

“Why? What happened here?”

“What happened _here_?” Sheeyeth hissed and suddenly rushed closer, all teeth and anger. It took a supreme effort of will not to back away. “What happened to you, Sethril? What happened to caring about Klesth? What happened to getting retribution, to protecting your hive?”

“I am protecting my hive,” I said.

“Yes, that's the problem! You went to them!”

“I'm protecting both our hives! And you say that like I had a choice!”

“Come now, Sethril, we both know that it must have taken effort to ingratiate yourself. You did have a choice. You could have let them kill you. They were the options that we all expected you to face – being killed, or coming home. Not willingly serving the killers of your best friend.”

“ _You_ attacked _us_ ,” Ssentris interjected. “If this friend was involved in the attack, then it's their own fault that – ”

“Oh right, we attacked you by protecting our own crop tunnels, of course we did.”

“You're still maintaining this story, huh? Good work on keeping it consistent, your little patsy here did a good job, but – ”

“Both of you, please!”

“Escort them out,” Sheeyeth commanded. Guards moved in, and we were surrounded by weapons. The Root Spider Hive diplomatic party moved out.

Except me. I stayed where I was.

“Sethril,” Sheeyeth said. “Move.”

“No.”

“If you won't surrender to the guards...”

“Then I guess that makes me an enemy combatant,” I said. “What are you going to do about it?”

Sheeyeth hissed in frustration, and for a few ticks I thought I'd misjudged. I'd seen Sheeyeth tear friends apart in hunger before; I'd helped. Who was to say that the hunter wouldn't act similarly in anger.

“That's one thing that hasn't changed about you, isn't it? Constantly rushing toward certain death. Your whole life is one long death burrow, isn't it? Move. Or die.”

“You're right, that hasn't changed about me. Nothing has. And you know me, Sheeyeth. We've hunted together. We've worked together. You know I do stupid stuff, but you said it yourself – you never thought I'd ally myself with my best friend's killers over something as paltry as my own life, did you?”

“No. I never expected that from you.”

“Then why won't you trust yourself and consider the possibility that I haven't?”


	29. Chapter 29

Sheeyeth didn't exactly look convinced, but did at least deign to hear our story. That was something.

“So, you're saying that at approximately the same time that we were attacked by Root Spider invaders coming up from the ocean, you were attacked by Eastern Dancer invaders?”

“That would appear to be the case.”

“This doesn't make sense.”

“Somebody is trying to pit both our hives against each other. And they're succeeding.”

“It seems much more likely that you are trying to avoid responsibility for your attack on our hive.”

“I thought the same thing, when Sethril said that you were attacked,” Ssentris pointed out, “but there are much easier ways to frame another hive than attack with one's own troops and then try to convince the other hive that they're mistaken.”

“Sheeyeth, I would ask that you petition the Hivenet to allow me to show my farming partner here the damage to your crop tunnels, in order to prove that the Eastern Dancer Hive was indeed attacked.”

“I'm not entirely convinced that the Root Spider Hive was attacked,” Sheeyeth said. “Couldn't they have faked the damage in their own hive for you, Sethril?”

“We could say the same thing,” Ssentris said.

“My hivemates didn't know I was coming,” I pointed out. “And even if they had, a very large proportion of the crop tunnels are all but destroyed. Such a ploy simply wouldn't be worth the cost.”

“I will relay your story – and you request – to the Hivenet,” Sheeyeth conceded. “The guards will show you to your chamber. We will contact you when a decision has been made.”

“Thank you.”

We were led down familiar tunnels, to a familiar chamber. Things inside the hive had changed so little. It had been... wow, less than a half cycle since I'd last been in the Eastern Dancer Hive. It had felt like so much longer.

The chamber in question was an old storeroom, currently empty. Ssentris and the guards among our party immediately began discussing strategy once we were left alone, leaving Ephesh and me with little to do.

“So,” Ephesh said awkwardly. “This is where you grew up, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Nice hive. Little big for my tastes, but, y'know.”

“Yeah, Eastern Dancers do like their space.” I lowered my voice. “They took us the long route to get here. There are two shorter ways to take the journey we took. They just wanted to show off.”

“Aha. So, that negotiator...”

“Sheeyeth. Old friend.”

“Didn't seem so friendly.”

“Yeah, well, Sheeyeth's never been nice.”

There was a slight pause before Ephesh spoke again. “We got escorted here by one of your friends, then the negotiator is another of your friends? Doesn't that strike you as a little weird?”

“Considering the circumstances, no.”

“But in a hive this size... how many friends do you have?!”

“Sheeyeth and Esheinth both used to patrol the border with me, back before. We were... guarding it, you might say.”

“Against Root Spiders.”

There was no point in being coy. “Yes. After I didn't come back, Esheinth would have assumed I was dead. So they would've patrolled the area with even greater vigor. We... we lost a lot of friends.”

“Yeah. We all did. But there must be other patrols out there. Your group couldn't have been the only one.”

“No, there were several. We were taken in by two, actually. Seven people is too much for one patrol.”

“What was that... stuff they were covered in?”

“Shaped metal. Eastern Dancers make outer metal shells and carry brightiron weapons these days. I don't know how to shape metal, unfortunately, so I can't hep equip our hive. But we might be able to garner the secret while we're here.”

“Brightiron?”

“The two-pronged spears. Trust me, they hurt.”

“Right, so the young hunt leader who happened to be your friend brought us to the negotiator who also happened to – ”

“If you disappeared and turned up almost half a cycle later with an enemy hive's contingent, don't you think one of your friends would fight to be the one to speak to them?”

“So your not-very-friendly friend fought for that job so they could... ignore you and make it clear they never wanted to speak to you again?”

“Apparently.”

“I believe you, Sethril. But you have to understand how this looks.”

“Frankly, I am far beyond caring if you, Ssentris, Sheeyeth, or anybody else thinks I'm a spy. It doesn't matter. All that matters is finding out whoever pit our hives against each other.”

“I don't think you're a spy.”

“But you don't completely believe me either, do you?”

“I think... I don't really understand how what you claim can make any sense.”

“Neither do I.” But if the Eastern Dancers let us investigate their tunnels, I could prove that I wasn't lying. And then we could figure it out together.


	30. Chapter 30

The Eastern Dancers did eventually allow Ephesh and me to inspect the tunnels. I suspected that the stories of my previous mindless rampage and slaughter of several of the invaders were still lingering in the Hivenet, and helped. They did send six guards, though, which I thought a little excessive. In the cramped tunnels, they'd just be getting in each others' way.

Ephesh and I dove in behind two such guards and let them lead the way to the tunnels where the fighting had taken place. I was actually quite glad that the Eastern Dancers were only allowing two of us in. Had a non-farmer like Ssentris been along, it would've been difficult to convince them of what we were seeing. It was a tunnel, it was made of stone, so what? But Ephesh, a lifelong guardian of the structural integrity of the crop tunnels of our own hive, saw the truth immediately. The farmer could distinguish new stone from old, delicate from strong – and while the damage was far less extensive, the scars of a rampage were clear.

“Can we follow it down to the ocean?” Ephesh asked in the ripples and gestures of underwater communication. Starting at a particularly dangerous cave-in that had only bore the marks of basic preliminary repair so far, we moved down.

It wasn't an area where I had fought. The guards must have gotten this particular intruder. Ephesh and I followed the trail down, tracking it by scars in the stone that had healed about as well as the scar in my own side. Unlike my scar, though, they would improve with time.

At the very bottom layers, Ephesh actively recoiled.

To me, they looked alright. Still very damaged, because they would be very difficult to repair so close to the ocean. Even the tidewater we swam in was foul-tasting with acid all the way down there. But Ephesh had been raised in a hive with excellent lower stone quality and, to my knowledge, had never left. From that perspective, the whole thing looked like a mess.

We made the silent journey back to our cavern. In a quiet and completely certain voice, Ephesh outlined what we had seen in terms that a non-hunter could understand. The rest of our little party discussed the behaviour of the Eastern Dancer Hive since we'd arrived, and in general – their behaviour wasn't typical of attackers. How the Eastern Dancers and Root Spiders had both reacted to each other in the same way throughout the war – offended indignation, demands for retribution.

“Alright,” Ssentris said to Sheeyeth once the negotiator responded to our requests for another audience, “let's say that this isn't an elaborate hoax with a goal that we haven't yet discerned. Somebody is trying... succeeding... in pitting our hives against each other. What now?”

“Our hive wants to send a contingent to inspect your crop tunnels,” Sheeyeth replied. “Farmers only. Any steps we take from here will be more effective the more completely we can trust each other.”

“We will escort your contingent safely to the Root Spider Hive,” Ssentris agreed.

“And out again.” Sheeyeth glanced pointedly at me.

“And out again,” Ssentris conceded.

“Then we are done here? We can have a team of four readied in a quarter-crest. Need they be unarmed?”

“No. If we're going to start trusting each other again, let us start now.”

The two linked primary claws briefly, and Sheeyeth left. As Sheeyeth passed me, they muttered quietly enough that only I could hear, “Good hunting, my old friend. I am... glad you are alive.”

“Good hunting to you, too,” I muttered back.


	31. Chapter 31

Esheinth wouldn't be coming to the Root Spider Hive with us, but did help escort us out of the Eastern Dancer Hive. We linked primary claws at the entrance for a brief moment.

“We could demand a Root Spider in concession for agreeing to all this,” Esheinth said quietly, quiet enough so that my captain couldn't hear. “You know, if you wanted. Your team understands that we are taking a leap of faith; it wouldn't be unreasonable. You could stay home.”

“Are you calling me a spy?”

“No, I... I didn't mean...”

“If I'm not a spy, then my hive is my home,” I said gently. “It's also where I'm needed.”

“Most of your group doesn't even seem to like or trust you.”

“Does that really matter? When this is over, and the tunnel races start up again, I'll come visit, okay?”

“Make sure you do. I'd hate to think something had happened to you. Again.”

“Take care of the Eastern Dancers, Esheinth. And say hello to Phaleth for me.”

“I will. And when you find out who killed Wethesh and Klesth... say hello to them from me.”

“You got it.”

“Alright,” Ssentris called, “let' move out.”

We did. With four Eastern Dancer farmers in tow, we headed for the Root Spider Hive once more.

Two of the farmers were barely adults, and I didn't recognise them. One was about half elder, and I'd seen them about but didn't know their name; the eldest, though, every farmer knew.

Eshouf was an elder. One who had lived beyond the lifespan expected of a taxxon, and was considered a bastion of wisdom. Such a person would be invaluable in inspecting tunnels for damage, although having seen the state the Root Spider tunnels were in myself, I knew that they weren't necessary. They were, however, a statement. To send somebody so valuable was a supreme declaration of trust. If the Eastern Dancer Hive had expected us to kill or forcibly integrate their inspectors, they would never have sent somebody so valuable. If they had considered that to be even and option, they would never have sent somebody so valuable, because an elder was a tempting prize even for a hive who hadn't intended to steal farmers. Eshouf's presence spoke louder than any statement Sheeyeth, or any other Eastern Dancer, had made.

I wondered what we'd done to warrant such trust. And where Eshouf stood on the issue.

I didn't bring it up, of course. I wasn't about to just walk over and start talking to an elder farmer. I was barely eighth elder myself; practically still a child. The only interaction I'd ever had with elder farmers had been them instructing me on stone treatment.

The farmers wore metal shells but carried simple, old-style hunting weapons, probably in an attempt not to look like an invading army. Or possibly because they didn't want us to figure out how brightiron worked. I had no idea how to shape metal, but I'd carried enough brightiron weapons that I was pretty sure I could figure out the acid combinations if I really tried. The crop tunnels, though, were of much more immediate concern.

Tileth, the most senior Root Spider guard in our little party, was sent on ahead to tell the hive to expect us. So by the time we arrived, there were no problems getting the Eastern Dancers inside.

It was nice, not being the center of a ring of weaponry when entering a hive. It had been a while since I'd experienced that.

We didn't waste time, stopping only to eat before taking the Eastern Dancers down into the tunnels. Even with the fragile stone in place from the overgrazing technique, the damage was obvious.

“Nobody would damage their own hive this much for some ruse,” Eshouf said decisively as we climbed out of the water and back into the nontidal layer. “It is clear that this hive was attacked during the same time period that ours was.”

“And yet, your hive suffers suspiciously little damage,” Ssentris pointed out.

“I propose that the Eastern Dancer Hive support the Root Spider Hive's flagging food stores until the next tidal cycle's crops are ready, in a show of faith,” I said. “If both of our hives can come out of the next lowtide season in good shape, we have a much better chance of getting retribution against whoever has done this.”

“That would leave the Eastern Spider Hive somewhat short, but I see no reason the proposal wouldn't be accepted,” Eshouf said. “I will relay it to our Hivenet.”

“None of this helps us discover who has done this to us,” Ssentris growled.

“Why don't we ask?” Ephesh proposed.

Ssentris and Eshouf stared at the young farmer.

“What do you mean, ask?” Eshouf asked.

“Well, have you had much contact with the other hives since this war began? Because we haven't. We shut down our borders with you and started avoiding everyone else for fear of further attack or political complications. But, why should we assume that we were the only hives targeted? Perhaps others were as well. Perhaps they know something.”

We all thought about that.

“Good point,” Ssentris said thoughtfully. “We should ask.”


	32. Chapter 32

After the Eastern Dancers agreed to bolster our food stocks for the coming lean season, we sent joint contingents to the Giant Foreclaw, Eastern Moss, and Tallshard hives. All responded in the same manner.

The responses could basically be summed up as, “We're glad you guys have finally caught on”.

Apparently the three hives had received several Root Spider and Eastern Dancer defectors when the conflict began (mostly members of each hive who had defected from the other hive earlier and wanted to avoid unpleasant fallout), and it quickly became apparent that their stories conflicted. Attempts to meet and discuss the issue with Root Spider and Eastern Dancer hunters had been universally met with aggression and accusations of alliance with the enemy before any headway could be made. So they had instead decided to leave both hives alone and let us work it out for ourselves.

Which was sort of embarrassing, since a sixteenth-crest of reasonable discussion and a little trust was enough to resolve the issue.

The other three hives didn't know who had set us against each other, and had experienced some unpleasantness themselves while each accused the others of arranging the stunt and endangering the peace of the area. Nor had they been attacked themselves. Nobody had any information on how the invaders of both hives had survived so long in the sea, or where they could have come from.

There was a lot of speculation about the purpose of the attack. There must have been a pressing reason to sacrifice so many warriors. The leading theory, at least in our own Hivenet, was that it was an attempt to destroy the Root Spider Hive. As the smallest hive in the area, we were particularly vulnerable, and had a disproportionately high level of hive entrance security as a result to guard ourselves against attack. The ocean-based invasion had devastated our population and farmland; it was possible that the attempt on the Eastern Dancers was to prod them into finishing us off, leaving no suspicion on the actual attackers. But what benefit could come from eliminating a hive like that? Raids happened, where the purpose of an attack was to steal resources. Concerted efforts to destroy a hive and integrate their population happened, when a hive was considered too much of a threat. But the Root Spider Hive was a threat to nobody, at least not before the attack had made us extremely angry. And this style of attack didn't allow for raiding, at least not from our actual attackers.

Tallshard, Giant Foreclaw and Eastern Moss all dealt with us cautiously; they knew that they were all suspects and, while either Root Spider or Eastern Dancer launching an attack on one of their undamaged hives would be foolish, together we were a quite dangerous force, especially if the other hives backed us. We sent some experts in lower crop level integrity to the Eastern Dancer Hive once the tide went down in order to help repair their intertidal layer, and they shared with us the secrets of brightiron. Breeding season came and went; my right side had stiffened a little more over the tide cycle, and could very well be a serious drawback in the mother pit as I aged. I should probably have felt angry about that – who wanted to die young? – but I'd considered myself to be living on borrowed time since the attack on the Eastern Dancer Hive anyway.

We were well into the lowtide season when a young hunter quite literally fell into the information we needed.

“A shaft?” I asked blankly.

“A shaft,” Ephesh confirmed, racing through the Hivenet. My own progress through the 'Net was always slower than my partner's because of the stiffness in the right side of my body, so sometimes I just read the core of a thought and let Ephesh verbally update me on the peripherals. This time, though, I made sure to take all the knots in my own claws, to be sure that I was understanding properly.

A young hunter had fallen through a patch of loose dirt outside the hive and into a long, almost vertical tunnel. The dirt above the tunnel had been jostled and displaced by a fight with prey; otherwise, it may never have been found. At first, it appeared to be a tunnel belonging to some kind of burrowing beast; the hunters decided to inspect it thoroughly since it was dangerously close to the hive. It quickly became apparent, however, that it was not the work of wildlife – it was a taxxon tunnel, clearly intended to be straight but weaving around several obstacles, built alone and unconnected to a hive.

And it was deep.

The tunnel moved through smooth surface dirt and then deep enough that, had it been in a hive, it would be in non-tidal stone; that side of the hive was generally considered poor building space, though, due to the unminable black stone that littered the area in large, sharp shards, so dirt mixed with stone continued down some way... and then stopped over a vast abyss. According to the report in the Hivenet, one of the hunters nearly fell in before noticing a long, climbable filament of some kind. They didn't recognise the material, but a sample had been woven into the Hivenet – it was like the long, fibrous hair that coated some surface animals, all woven and twisted together as if to combine several filaments into a very long one. I'd seen similar things done with roots to continue a thought that was too long to knot into a single root, but I had never in my life seen as much animal hair as must have been needed to create the filament that was being described. Nobody had dared follow it down, but there was only one thing under that dirt – ocean.

Whoever our invaders were, we'd discovered how they had survived so long in the ocean.

They hadn't. They'd dropped in very close to the nest, dove under the crop tunnels, and swam back up.

A messenger was immediately dispatched to relay this to the Eastern Dancer Hive, so that they might search for a tunnel near their hive. We agreed to keep the knowledge from the other hives – we didn't know which of them were responsible yet.

There was an air of trepidation and impending action about the hive as we harvested the crops. Everybody was excited by the breakthrough, everybody wanted to be doing something – but despite learning so much, we still had no information that we could use. We still didn't know who had attacked us.

“Ugh, I hate politics,” Ephesh muttered as we balled up moss. “I swear we never had all this war and mystery when we were children.”

“I'm scheduled to supervise some new eighth matures next cycle,” I said numbly. “They weren't even hatched when the attack happened. It has got to the point where we have farmers tending these tunnels who weren't hatched when they were attacked. They know nothing else.”

“That's kind of a scary thought.” Ephesh reached the end of the tunnel and signalled that it was now clear of moss. We moved to the next one. It was important to leave some scraps of moss behind to attract water-borne prey during hightide season. “You know, if it weren't for the possibility of being attacked again, I'd almost be tempted to say we should just bury the whole thing. Move on. Why throw ourselves into another war?”

“You don't want revenge on the people who did this to us?”

“Oh, sure. But I want to concentrate on stabilising our crops even more.”

I glanced about the tunnels. They'd made an impressive recovery in only a few tide cycles. “I think the goal is to do both.”

“I know. And I know that we need to hit back, we need to set an example to show that we won't tolerate this kind of thing. We need to make sure we're not an easy target for every random hive. But... I hate this fighting sense that's gotten into everyone. I hate this sense of impending doom. And I really hate going aboveground. If it were up to me, I'd just stay here in the hive forever.”

“I'm the same.”

“Didn't you make a suicide run across two territories to get into this hive in the first place?”

“That was really more a case of doing what needed to be done than doing what I wanted to do.” I neatly skipped over the part before that where I'd been roving the surface with my friends looking for trouble.

“I'm just... I'm sick of losing hivemates to outside forces. Hunting, fighting, whatever.”

“Fair enough.” I got started balling moss in the next tunnel. “But when we do find out who did this...”

“Then we can grind them into a paste to feed the moss for what they did to us and get on with a normal life,” Ephesh said mildly. “Whatever that means now.”


	33. Chapter 33

The other hives kept sending occasional diplomatic envoys, so it was sort of inevitable that eventually, somebody would let slip the discovery of the shaft to somebody from a suspect hive.

The envoy in question was a half mature Tallshard representative named Leesha, who was immediately sworn to secrecy. Leesha agreed on the condition that they were allowed to inspect the shaft. Although nobody expected the young Tallshard to actually keep their promise and conceal what they had learned from their own, there was no harm in allowing the inspection. They already knew we'd discovered it, after all, and if the Tallshard weren't our attackers, then Leesha might have some insight. Not that anybody was overly confident of that. Leesha wasn't a builder or a warrior; what would they see in the shaft?

Plenty, as it turned out. According to the Hivenet report, Leesha had stopped about a third of the way down the shaft, claiming to have caught a familiar scent. A long tunnel in open soil could contain several thousand scents, some of which were more familiar than others, so nobody considered this to be particularly interesting news – until Leesha approached one of the many obstacle-avoiding turns in the tunnel and began to dig. The area in question was simply dirt littered with shards of dark stone; the shards were dangerous to swallow, so the digging took quite some time, but eventually Leesha emerged with a claw.

A taxxon claw.

The claw was taken back to our hive for inspection. According to the builders, who had seen such injuried before when tunneling dangerously close to hazards, it had most likely been severed by a heavy shard of black stone during a minor cave in. Most likely, the workers had simply decided to continue around the hazard, leaving the claw behind.

To me, and indeed to most of the Root Spider Hive, the claw smelled of nothing important – a sharp but unfamiliar scent that could belong to any number of animals or materials in the immediate environment. We didn't recognise the scent as one belonging to a hive that we knew.

Leesha and the few Tallshard defectors did.

“This is from the Great Flier Hive,” Leesha said, confused, to an impromptu audience consisting of most of the Root Spider Hive who happened not to be busy at that moment. The young diplomat inspected the claw as if it was some puzzle to be solved, of a particularly stubborn knot in a Hivenet that they aimed to untie.

“I've never heard of them,” Ephesh said. “Sethril?”

“I don't think so,” I said.

“They shouldn't know you, either,” Leesha responded, “except perhaps in passing conversation. Their hive is on the opposite side of ours from yours, and even farther away.”

“Then what would one be doing so far down here?”

“That's a good question.”

I tried to remember the local hive layout. I'd never been anywhere except the Eastern Dancer and Root Spider Hives, but I'd skimmed the layout records in both Hivenets a few times. I wished I'd paid more attention.

“Near Tallshard is nowhere near Eastern Dancer or Eastern Moss,” I said slowly. “But... are they within travel distance of Giant Foreclaw?”

“Foreclaw and Tallshard are both on their tunnel racer circuit,” Leesha confirmed.

“So our attackers had several members that smelled of the Root Spider and Eastern Dancer Hives,” somebody I didn't know said, “and at least one Great Flier. The hives likely to have defectors from that population...”

“Are Giant Foreclaw and my own hive,” Leesha finished. “Well, that gives us something to go on.”

“You're implicating your own hive?”

“I know we're innocent, but I have no way of proving that to you, so we can't be discounted from your suspect pool,” Leesha said matter-of-factly. “Perhaps both you and the Eastern Dancers should check your own defection numbers, and track where your people went.”

“It's not always easy to tell a defector from somebody who simply died,” somebody pointed out.

“Deaths tend to have witnesses.”

“Point.”

“I think I've accomplished everything useful that I can here. I'll set out for home when the aboveground light vanishes.” With that, Leesha left the cavern, leaving the tell tale claw behind.

“You know how you said you wanted to get revenge on these people and get back to a normal life?” I asked Ephesh.

“I do.”

“It's starting to look like that might actually be possible within our lifetimes.”

“More war. Wonderful.”


	34. Chapter 34

We were reasonably sure that Leesha would keep the Tallshard Hive updated on events despite any promises to the contrary, so we brought the Eastern Moss Hive into our little alliance. The chance that they were our enemies had dropped with the discovery of the Great Flier claw. Of course, the claw itself could be a plant. It could've been a huge double bluff. But if we disregarded every piece of evidence based on the chance that it might be fake, we'd never get anywhere.

The soldiers and elders of the Root Spider, Eastern Dancer and Eastern Moss Hives worked together to put together an invasion force to deal with out enemy, once they were determined. In the meantime, we sent diplomats... well, spies... to Tallshard and Giant Foreclaw.

I helped check the Hivenet for possible deserters of the hive. Almost all of the names that came up were people who had left or disappeared long before my arrival, which was probably part of the reason that I was selected for the task. Sometimes, whether they were dead or had defected was easy to determine (either because witnesses to the death or their own messages of desertion were woven into the Hivenet already), but other times, the job involved taking hunters and explorers aside and quietly asking them to tell me what exactly had happened the last time they saw their friend.

It wasn't something anybody wanted to talk about. But I was able to get confirmation on whether different deaths had actually been witnessed or not. Some of them were very obviously one way or another – somebody who had actually been seen to die could be written off, and somebody who just wandered away from the hive on their own for no reason was probably a deserter. Sometimes, taxxons weren't seen to actually die but were last seen injured and begging their friends to get away from them before their resolve broke. If they didn't eventually make their way back to the hive, they were probably dead.

There was a disturbingly high number of taxxons unaccounted for. When taxxons left the hive and didn't come back without saying anything, death was a natural assumption. But a lot of them hadn't been witnessed dying. Sometimes, they were whole hunting parties, and it was impossible to tell if a party defected together or died aboveground. It was normally sort of assumed that somebody who was going to switch hives would at least say goodbye to their friends first... but what if they didn't? Taxxons who smelled like Root Spiders and Eastern Dancers were involved in setting up their own hives in the attacks, so they clearly didn't care all that much about anybody inside them. Such people might not say goodbye at all. If that was the case then, theoretically, there were a lot of potential defectors from the Root Spider Hive.

But...

But people didn't work like that. One or two taxxons abandoning their own hive and attacking it for no reason, sure, that was possible. But we had dozens of suspects. There was just no way that so many people would be so treacherous.

And yet, a significant number of former Easter Dancers had climbed up our tunnels. A significant number of Root Spiders had climbed up theirs. And they had to have come from somewhere.

Despite everything we'd learned, I still felt no better off than when I'd stared down at the black ocean under the Eastern Dancer Hive and tried to figure out what could possess people to risk such an attack. We still seemed to have no answers.

It became very easy to move between the Eastern Dancer, Eastern Moss and Root Spider Hives; the constant streams of soldiers and hunters left safe routes devoid of most predators. There was even talk of coaxing tendrils of our living nets out closer to each other to shorten the journey, but very few people expected the alliance to have to last long enough to make it worthwhile.

But the safe routes made it very easy to dispense information quickly when a harried-looking Tallshard messenger arrived at our hive and said only, “I am not at liberty to discuss the details here, but the Tallshard Hive has information that we believe will help track down the ones responsible for the attacks against the Root Spider and Eastern Dancer Hives. We request that you bring your armies to our territory as soon as possible.”

Not our soldiers. Our armies. “Our... entire armies?”

“Oh, yes. You may very well need them.”


	35. Chapter 35

Ephesh, not wanting to leave the hive again, elected to stay behind as part of the crew to tend and protect the hive. I couldn't shake the thought that pulling the majority of the security away for a long journey was just asking to be attacked. But nor could I let the mystery go, so I, like many of my hivemates not immediately needed by the hive, elected to go with the soldiers.

We were outfitted with new artificial shells and new weapons. Combining the efforts of the Root Spider, Eastern Dancer and Eastern Moss Hives had produced a range of weapons even more strange and effective than brightiron. I was given canisters of acid that, using an Eastern Moss water-drawing system that they used to moisten damaged stone, could actually spit acid out in front of me. It required less agility to use than an actual claw-manipulated weapon, which reduced the impact that my stiff side had on my fighting ability.

I was concentrating on keeping a reasonable pace while weighed down with metal shells and canisters, so I didn't even notice the familiar footsteps until their owner spoke up.

“Well, don't you look fancy.”

I turned. “Phaleth?”

My old friend looked pretty much the same as they had when we'd bid each other goodbye at the border between our nests. Their metal shell design had improved, and they were now armed with a much longer two-pronged brightiron spear with very fine prongs and some kind of complicated-looking lever system on the handle. Phaleth was also missing three eyes, probably from a hunting accident.

“Sethril. It's been a while. Glad to see you're okay.”

“Likewise. You... joined the army?”

“You sound surprised.”

“I expected Sheeyeth, but not you.”

“Sheeyeth's determined to defend the hive. But I could say the same for you. You've never been the wandering type. I would've expected you to stay back tending your crop tunnels.”

“I want to. But, well, I kind of feel like I should see this through. After everything.”

“You want to take a bite of your own out of these guys, huh? Me too.”

“You're not worried that this whole thing is a ruse to get soldiers away from the hives for an attack?” I asked.

“It'd be a pretty elaborate one.”

“So is framing each other while attacking both of our hives via the ocean.”

“Point. But,” Phaleth added with sincere-sounding confidence, “I'm sure the forces left at home can handle it.”

A lot of the soldiers from both the Root Spider and Eastern Dancer Hives were people that I recognised well enough on sight, but Phaleth was my only real friend among them. And it was good to have a friend. Eventually, though, I had to broach the difficult subject.

“When I went with the diplomatic contingent back to the Eastern Dancer Hive, Sheeyeth was... not happy... to see me.”

“We didn't have all the information at the time. You have to understand, after you went out to the Root Spider Hive and didn't come back, we assumed you had been killed. And when it turned out you'd joined them... look, from our perspective, it seemed like...”

“Like signing up with the enemy, I know.”

“Sheeyeth has always been particularly impressed with you, you know.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Ever since your suicide rampage during the tunnel attack. Sheeyeth likes a good suicide mission, and likes somebody willing to take one even more. I guess that Sheeyeth expected you to be walking in and confronting an enemy, and if you couldn't get back to us, to take death over conspiring with them. So when you returned...”

“Sheeyeth said you didn't want to see me.”

“I was out hunting at the time.”

“That's not an answer.”

“I know. I... by the time I got back, everything had been resolved. I didn't get a chance to have an opinion on the issue. I think Sheeyeth wanted it that way. I am glad that your hive isn't responsible for the attacks, though. I don't want us to ever have to be enemies.”

“If the Root Spiders were responsible, I wouldn't have let them become my hive.”

“I know.”

We walked in silence for a bit.

“You know, for someone who appreciates a good suicide run,” I said, “I'm surprised that Sheeyeth isn't here. It seems like a mission with plenty of chances to die in defence of one's hive.”

“I'm sure it is. But Sheeyeth went where they felt they were needed most, personal desires aside.”

“I can certainly relate to that.”


	36. Chapter 36

We didn't march our entire army up to the Tallshard hive, of course. We sent messengers ahead, one from each hive. I was chosen as a messenger, as was Theph of the Eastern Dancer Hive (the one who had taught the hive to shape metal), and somebody from the Eastern Moss Hive named Shotaph, who had apparently defected from the Root Spiders several cycles ago. All, I noticed, people who had had a home in more than one hive. A nice diplomatic touch.

I also couldn't help but notice that Tallshard, the hive we were travelling to, was the only hive in our immediate area that none of us had ever lived in.

Theph was almost an elder by then, and as such was immediately appointed the leader of our little team. We didn't bother to disarm before approaching – we had been invited as soldiers, and we were going to act like it.

Leesha, the discoverer of the Great Flier Hive claw in the tunnel near out hive, met us under the Tallshard tree. Guards could just be glimpsed inside the hive, but they were well out of hearing range.

“Good,” the young diplomat said quietly, “you're here. We need to talk.”

“What's the problem?” Theph asked.

“I've checked our records, in the existing knots and marks of those previously untied through the Hivenet. Tallshard has received a lot of refugees from all neighbouring hives in recent cycles. But here's the thing – they're not here any more.”

“So it's Tallshard,” Theph said. “Your hive attacked ours. Why are you telling us this?”

“It isn't Tallshard,” they continued impatiently. “At least, I really hope it isn't. I thought it was at first, so I kept this nice and quiet, just told a few friends. We searched the Hivenet, we couldn't find any record of any attack plans. Besides, our Root Spider and Eastern Dancer refugees didn't disappear all in one chunk, like you would expect if they headed down to attack you. They trickled away over time. We only had a few defectors at once, so I guess nobody thought anything was weird about it. But we did end up taking in quite a lot. They just seemed to conveniently die at a very high rate. But it started happening a while ago. I can't give an exact deadline, but I'd estimate maybe a span of three quarters maturity.”

Three quarters maturity... about twelve tidal cycles. Of course, I had no idea how good Leesha's estimates were.

“Look, this is going to be a lot easier to show you than to tell you. My friends and I... I don't know how well we can trust our own hive right now.” Leesha wasn't being impatient, I realised – Leesha was nervous. Very nervous. “I was involved in convincing the Hivenet to call you here, because we think we've found your enemy. But I didn't... I mean, I have some information that I didn't tell the hive as a whole. There's... there's relevant information here that I... that we... kept out of the Hivenet.”

We were silent for several skips. Then Theph said, very quietly, “Why?”

“Because I don't know how united the Tallshard Hive is. I... I don't now how much I can trust my Hivemates.” Leesha laughed hollowly. “Look at this. I'm appealing to a foreign army with sensitive information I'm actively concealing from my own hive. Guess that makes me a spy, huh.” The diplomat turned toward the hive entrance. “I need to show you all something. It's much easier to show you than to try to explain.”

“Where are we going?” Shotaph asked.

“To the Hivenet. I want you to read this for yourselves.”

“You're taking foreign military into your own hive to _touch your Hivenet_?! How by the ocean did your hive approve that?”

“I'm sort of hoping that if we look like we know what we're doing, nobody will stop to question us. I have a friend ready to program you into the living net – a trusted friend. It should all look official.”

“So we're actually performing inter-hive espionage now, huh?” I asked. “We're all just going to be spies? Nobody has a problem with this?”

“Look,” Leesha said, “do you want to tunnel through this problem or what?”

“Yeah, but...”

“Do you think I want to do this? Because I don't. I'm trying to save my hive much as you're trying to avenge yours. And in some ludicrous twist of fate, I find myself in a position where heavily armed foreigners are more trustworthy than my own hivemates. Tell me, have you ever been in a truly desperate situation?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I have.”

“Then you understand the feeling. So either go home, or shut up, follow me, and look like you know where you're going.”


	37. Chapter 37

We disarmed to blend in and tried to look like we knew what we were doing as we followed Leesha through the maze under the entrance and then into the living net. I half-expected the living tunnel to reject us, but it accepted Leesha's destination request and sucked all four of us forward through the stone and into the hive proper. We exited at a nexus and followed Leesha down a corridor, then another.

Once inside the hive, I relaxed a little. If you could get inside a hive, people tended to just assume that you were meant to be there. Nobody challenged us as we took the roundabout route through the hive, away from the little entrance point.

We received more suspicious looks as we made progress towards the Hivenet. Nobody recognised us and we smelled foreign; with everybody expecting a military contingent to show up any time, it was natural to assume that we didn't belong. But we were with Leesha, a clear hive native, so nobody stopped us. We were eventually joined by a few other Tallshard taxxons, presumably to add legitimacy to our presence.

Quickly, before anybody could question our presence, Leesha led us into the large cavern containing the Hivenet, then onto the 'Net itself.

I cambered over foreign knots, trying not to read them as I climbed. Being there felt somewhat... voyeuristic. Leesha led us straight to a particular area, and scampered aside so that we could caress the knots.

“Here. Three dead, all defectors, out hunting West when they perished.”

We read the report. The defectors in question had been two members of the Great Flier Hive and one Root Spider. The fourth person who had been with them described their deaths in enough detail to make me want to recoil.

“Right,” Theph said, “so you lost hunters. And you're concerned because... you're losing a lot? Isn't this more a wildlife problem?”

“Look at the knots carefully,” Leesha said impatiently. “Look how few of the knots are notched. They could be easily undone.”

“Some people don't like to notch,” Shotaph noted.

“For important information? Who doesn't notch important information? There are more conclusive stories, but they're farther in and I'm worried that if I lead you in there...”

I stopped paying attention to Leesha's words, because I was focusing on the knot in my claws. It was, as she'd said, unnotched – nobody had cut any little nicks into it to make it more difficult to untie. At least, not for its current information. But inside the knot itself were a couple of notches, remnants from previous knots that the root had been woven into. And they hadn't completely healed over.

“Leesha,” I said, “how old is this report?”

“These hunters went missing about a quarter mature span ago.”

“Four tide cycles?”

“Actually it'd be five by now, I think.”

I inspected the notches more closely. “And yet, this part of the report – this is part of the witness' report. It's buried under enough other information to be that old, but this knot hasn't been tied in its current position for more than a tide cycle or two.” I looked at my fellow messengers. “Somebody's been planting false information here. Somebody's doctoring the history of this Hivenet.”

“How can you be sure? From one knot?” Theph muttered to me as we exited the Hivenet.

“I've seen this before,” I said reluctantly. “In the Eastern Dancer Hive.”

“Somebody's been interfering with Eastern Dancer history?! And you said nothing?!”

“I didn't know who I could trust. And then after the attacks... well, we just had more important things to worry about.”

Leesha led us safely back into the living net, and there was a pause in conversation as we were sucked back out toward the entrance maze. I relaxed further when we climbed out of the living tunnel; we'd successfully gotten out of the hive. Nobody would challenge us leaving.

It was a little unnerving how easy the whole thing had been, though. I couldn't help but think that a single ally could lead enemies into the Root Spider Hive in much the same manner.

Of course, that wasn't our most immediate concern.

“Most of the doctored weaves I've been able to identify are about people either coming to the hive or disappearing,” Leesha explained once we were safely outside. “We've been analysing the whole thing for patterns and – ”

“You've been analysing the entire Hivenet?” Theph asked disbelievingly.

“As much of it as we can,” Leesha amended. “Trying for a random spatial sample and all that. We've noticed a few patterns. First, as I said, it's mostly information about the movement of people and, occasionally, resources through the hive. Second.... well, this may mean very little; it might just be an artifact of changes in local wildlife populations, but we couldn't help noticing that most of the suspiciously doctored disappearances are people who were out hunting to the West or Northwest of the hive.

“The direction of the Giant Flier Hive, I assume?” Shotaph asked.

“Vaguely, yes.”

“So you think that your hive is being used as some kind of.... waystation for a growing Giant Flier army of defectors?” Even as I said it, I realise how stupid it sounded. “Why, though? What could the Giant Fliers – or indeed the defectors from our own hives – have against us? What could prompt them to sacrifice so many in an attack like this?”

“I don't know,” Leesha confessed. “This I mostly speculation, you understand. What was the information you found in your Hivenet about?”

“It was a long time ago,” I said. “I was about half-mature and it was a couple of tidal cycles old already when I found it. Now it would be perhaps... between three quarters and a full mature period? And it had nothing to do with deaths or defections. It was among old trade reports. Somebody had been editing the history of Eastern Dancer opinions of the Root Spider Hive, trying to make them look more positive.”

“Why?” Shotaph asked.

“I don't know. I never found out.”

“Such unconnected topics, but such similar tactics...” Leesha said thoughtfully. “We've already sent a messenger to talk quietly to some of my friends in the Giant Foreclaw Hive, just in case they're experiencing anything similar. I expected that we'd have enough answers to move ahead, but if you all want to go home and inspect your own Hivenets for tampering, then we can work around that.”

“No,” Theph said. “We're here now, we can't move an army back and forth like that without explanation. We chase this up now. We find this Great Flier Hive... and we deal with the issue.”

Once Leesha had gone back inside, I muttered to Theph, “You do realise that the Great Flier Hive are also quite likely to be innocent in all of this?”

“I know. But Leesha seems to be trying to steer us at them... why not let them think they've won?”

“I hate politics,” I sighed. “I really, really hate politics.”

We rushed back to met up with the advancing army and our story quickly spread through the ranks. Thoughts on the issue were mixed, although there were two things that were generally agreed upon – we shouldn't mention our time on the Hivenet to the Tallshard Hive as a whole (lest it be taken as an attack), and now that the army was mobilised, we should find and confront our attackers.

If only we knew exactly who that was.

The army arrived at the Tallshard Hive, and we were given a more sanitised version of what Leesha had told us, without the intra-hive doubts and sounding much more condemning of the Great Flier Hive. I still found it somewhat unlikely that a hive we'd never had contact with would want to attack us.

“Has anybody sent somebody to talk to this Great Flier Hive?” I asked.

Apparently, three messengers had been sent. None had returned.

That wasn't a good sign. But then, the Eastern Dancers Hive had thought the same of me when I went to speak with the Root Spiders. Still, no matter what had happened to the messengers, if they weren't getting home then we could gleam no information.

Still, sending an army seemed a little bit of an overreaction.

But we needed to move quickly, whatever we did. The army had left a swathe of depopulated land in our wake as we hunted everywhere we moved in order to feed ourselves. We couldn't stay in one place for long. We didn't want to have a starving army in unfamiliar territory – that would be a diplomatic nightmare.

So we decided to send a small group of messengers about a half crest ahead of the army as a whole. At least that way, we'd know exactly what was happening to the messengers. We stuck with the same messengers – Theph, Shotaph and myself – and added Leesha to our ranks, so that we included somebody who had at some point lived in every local hive, and Phaleth, who basically insisted. Our ranks bolstered by Tallshard soldiers, we moved on.

We didn't know what to expect. But the heavily wounded stranger that limped across our path was somewhat of a surprise.

  
  



	38. Chapter 38

We were making good distance when Shotaph suddenly called a halt, claiming to hear something. It wasn't long before we heard, and then smelled, what Shotaph had. The individual struggling to limp along just out of sight smelled of blood.

Naturally, we adjusted our course to meet them.

We quickly caught up with a young taxxon who smelled of the Giant Foreclaw Hive. They were missing most of the legs on the left side of their body, as well as a few healthy chunks of flesh from their face. They looked extremely nervous at our array of weaponry and metal shells; I quickly disarmed before rushing over.

“Hey. Are you alright?”

“Get back! Leave me alone!” The wounded taxxon attempted to retreat, but they moved quite slowly. I stopped as demanded.

“It's okay. We want to help. My name's Sethril, of the Root Spider Hive.”

“Help, huh? Sure you do. I got away and now you've caught up to me to... 'help'.”

“We're a party of messengers from the Eastern hives,” I pointed out gently. “We weren't expecting to run into anybody out here. What's your name?”

“Teshel,” they said reluctantly. “Of the Giant Foreclaw Hive.”

Theph stepped forward. The smell of the Giant Foreclaw had faced from the defector several tide cycles ago, but they would know the local standards of courtesy and might be able to communicate better than I could.

“Teshel,” Theph said, “what happened to you?”

“They attacked me. The ones in the desert.” Teshel glared at us suspiciously. “You're an oddly mixed group for messengers.”

“We're an alliance,” Theph said.

“I heard about that. I didn't hear they were sending messengers up our way.”

“We're looking for the Great Flier Hive, actually,” Theph said.

“So was I.”

“You're a Giant Foreclaw messenger to the Great Flier Hive?” Leesha interjected. “The Tallshard messengers haven't been returning.”

“Neither have our. Guess I found out why.”

“What happened?”

“They've set up about equidistant between Giant Foreclaw, Great Flier and Tallshard. They have a hive out there.”

“A... new hive?” Leesha asked. It was no easy feat to set up a new hive. It took a very long time and a lot of work, not to mention a good, open bit of territory.

“Kind of. They have a tree that barely sticks out of the dirt. I didn't even know it was there until they found me. But it's got deep roots. Deep enough for a Hivenet.”

“You saw this hive?” Theph asked sharply.

“They invited me in. I should've tried to run sooner. But you can't just... there's stuff there I've never seen. Stuff like your weapons, but... other things.”

“Teshel,” Theph said carefully, “from here, where exactly is this... new hive?”

Shotaph waited with Teshel for the approaching army while Theph, Phaleth, Leesha and I changed course to have a look at the new hive.

“So,” Theph said casually as we fell in step behind Leesha, who was most familiar with the area, “this everyone's first suicide mission?”

“Well, this one time I led foreign soldiers into my own hive and got them looking through our Hivenet without any kind of permission from the hive as a whole,” Leesha said casually.

“I did rush toward certain death in order to defend some crops from invaders,” I added.

“See these missing eyes?” said Phaleth. “Fliers tried to carry away a novice hunter I was out with. Should've lost my entire face.”

“Oh good, we're all veterans then.”

“Why, what suicide mission did you go on?” I asked Theph curiously.

“That's a really long story. I promise to tell it if we all live.”

We were nearing the area that, according to Teshel, the new hive was supposed to have been established. I saw no evidence of any hive tree, although it wasn't always easy to tell a hive tree from any other random tree in the wilderness. The only real qualification was that they needed to be old enough to have a strong, extensive root network in which to build a Hivenet.

“I don't see anything,” Phaleth said nervously. “Is this the right area?”

“This is where Teshel sent us,” Theph said. “Assuming the layout hasn't changed since my defection.”

“This is the place,” Leesha confirmed. “I don't know what – aaargh!” The young diplomat jumped backwards, and we immediately crowded around.

“What?” I asked. “What happened?!”

“I don't know. Something venemous in the soil...”

“Let me see,” Theph said. We retreated from the place where Leesha had been bitten, and the diplomat rolled onto one side.

“Which foot?” Theph asked.

“Most of the front ones.”

“I'm not seeing any bite wounds. Nor do I know of anything that can bite so many times simultaneously... do any of you?”

“No,” I muttered, peering closely at Leesha's feet. “I can't find a bite wound, either.”

“Ugh. It felt like acid.”

“Like acid?” I asked sharply. “Or like extreme heat?”

“I've never felt extreme heat.”

“Did it feel kind of all at once? Not slow, like acid?”

“Yeah. Do you know what we're dealing with?”

“Maybe. Phaleth, can you come look at this with me?”

Phaleth and I walked back towards the place where Leesha had been bitten. I took the lead, carefully edging forward one foot at a time. “Watch the ground,” I said. “If I'm right, there should be... ah.” Under the ground vegetation was something silvery, laid out in fine lines. Finer than I'd ever seen them. Shaped metal, in long strands.

I reached out with one secondary claw, and laid it across two of the metal strands. Something painful flared in my limb. “Aargh!”

“Sethril?” Phaleth asked. “You okay?”

“I'm fine. Just look down. Look carefully.”

Phaleth focused on the strands of metal. “Brightiron,” they whispered.

“Long strands of it. Who knows how far it stretches?”

“What do we do? We can't walk over it. We'd collapse and burn to death before we made it across.”

That certainly didn't sound like a great way to die. “We could... dig under it?”

Leesha approached from behind us, limping slightly. “How does it work?”

“It's like our weapons,” Theph explained. “If you connect two canisters of the right kinds of acid via metal, hot light travels through the metal between them.”

“But the whole connection doesn't have to be metal,” I added. “It'll run through taxxon claws pretty well too.”

“You can channel the power of acid through somebody without having them touch the acid?” Leesha said. “That's... that's amazing!”

“It's also a problem for us right now.”

Leesha looked thoughtfully at the metal strands. “It only sends hot light through whatever is making the connection?”

“Yes...”

“Then what would happen if we laid some of your metal shells across it, and walked on top of them?”

“It... it would probably still move up into our bodies,” Theph said uncertainly.

“And yet, it only moved through my feet, touching the two wires... not my entire body.”

We looked at each other.

“I don't know about you guys,” Phaleth said, “but I think that's probably worth a try.”


	39. Chapter 39

We peeled pieces of metal shell from out bodies and laid it down on the wires, where it cracked and sparked, causing us all to jump back. Leesha was the first to gingerly reach out with one leg and step upon the metal.

“It's fine. Let's go.”

So we each put out a few pieces and used them to carefully shuffle-walk along the brightiron laced ground. Occasionally, sparks would fly up where metal moved against metal; for the most part, the journey was quiet and uneventful. We were all too busy concentrating on keeping our balance on the metal to engage in small talk.

Until we hit a problem.

“Is anybody else's feet getting warm?” Phaleth asked.

The metal, trying to deal with so much light passing through it, was indeed heating up. Eventually it became too hot to tolerate and we switched out our little metal platforms for cooler pieces from our bodies. But we had a limited supply of metal on us, and if we didn't find an end to the field of brightiron before we ran out... well, then we were in serious trouble.

“We should've interrogated the Giant Foreclaw messenger more thoroughly,” Leesha muttered. “Found out how they made it through this. There's no way they used this method.”

“Better question: how is the army going to make this journey?” Phaleth asked.

“I guess we'd better find a way to remove it as an obstacle before they get this far,” I said. “Find the acid and pull the metal away from it.”

“In the invisible new hive we're apparently heading to from which no messenger emerges? Why are we investigating this by ourselves again?”

I ignored the question and kicked away a piece of too-hot metal, replacing it with another from my back. The cool surface was a welcome relief, but temporary; I kept moving. My stiff right side slowed me a little, but I fought to keep up. No sense complaining about an old injury; it was my own fault for going along and not leaving it up to the three other able bodied messengers.

But of course, they weren't all completely able bodied. I'd forgotten about Phaleth's missing eyes.

I'd forgotten that Phaleth must have a blind spot.

I remembered, when Phaleth slipped, and the metal under my old friend's left front legs skittered away across the brightiron plane. Phaleth tried to keep balance, but with smooth metal on metal, there was nothing to grip. Phaleth pitched sideways.

Phaleth screamed.

The scent of taxxon flesh on brightiron was somewhat familiar to me, but never before had I smelled it so strongly. The last time somebody had screamed at its touch, I had been wielding the brightiron. I'd never watched a friend endure it. I'd never heard Phaleth's scream.

We shuffled over, a clumsy team of misfit taxxons of all ages, trying to pull Phaleth onto our own platforms, trying to help. But there was nothing to grip, no way to shift our weight to move the twitching, unresponsive taxxon where we wanted to. Three taxxons – even a near elder, an old war wound sufferer, and one barely out of childhood – should be enough to lift Phaleth, but only if we could get a grip, and have some traction on the ground. But we couldn't.

I grabbed Phaleth's foreclaws and tugged; a thrash nearly tipped me onto the ground as well, and ripped out one of my friend's arms. I stared at it dumbly as Phaleth's flesh smoked and smouldered against the brightiron. Theph and Leesha tried to lift the struggling taxxon together, and were both nearly pushed over.

There was nothing we could do.

Phaleth was _right there_ , suffering right in front of us, and there was nothing we could do.

The screaming stopped, eventually. The twitching didn't. Phaleth's strength had flagged before their life. I was no healer, but even I could tell that my old friend was far, far beyond help.

“We have to move,” Theph said.

“They're still alive,” I pointed out.

“Phaleth can't be saved, and this metal is still heating up. Unless you know of a way to quicken their end without being dragged down to the ground yourself, there's nothing we can do here.”

I glanced at the canisters of acid I carried for my acid-spitting weapon. I could probably speed things up... but would I make things better, or worse? Would acid hurt more than brightiron alone?

I had no way of knowing.

Phaleth was, of course, unresponsive by then. They had been for awhile. I had no idea whether they could hear our words or even knew we were there.

“I'm sorry, my friend,” I whispered. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I...” What was there to say? 'Good hunting'? 'Take care of the hive?' No normal farewell message was applicable to leaving somebody to die.

“I'll avenge you,” I said.

And then we continued our trek across the warm metal field.


	40. Chapter 40

When we saw the tree, we knew what to aim for. The brightiron-laced ground was largely featureless, but for the tree. Was it the hive tree we were looking for? It was tiny, not very distinctive. But it was the only obvious feature to aim for. What else would it be?

We were nearly out of bits of metal shell to stand on by the time we spotted it. But what we lacked in extra defence, we made up for in steadily growing fury. We made it to the tree with almost no metal to spare and saw, to our relief, a hive entrance at its base – just as well, because we had no way of crossing the brightiron-laced land again.

Weapons ready and all fervently wishing we'd brought some actual warriors, we crept in. As the one with the most combat experience, I was put in front. Theph took up the rear, protecting the young diplomat Leesha (who had claimed never to have killed anything on purpose) in the middle. The entrance opened immediately into a small chamber containing six guards armed with strange iron and stone weapons that I'd never seen. Well-armed guards ahead, brightiron field behind, and sandwiched in the middle, us three, sadly unprepared little messengers.

As soon as they spotted us, every single one of the guards dropped their weapons and adopted a posture of surrender.

Okay then.

“Guide us into the hive,” Leesha demanded.

Our new prisoners obeyed immediately, filing out of the little cavern and into the hive. If there was an entrance labyrinth, it certainly didn't look like one – we weren't led into any winding, confusingly branched tunnels, but instead into wide, well-plotted ones that looked much like the inside of a normal hive,the sort of tunnels you got to after going through all the security measures. If it was a newly established hive, that sort of made sense; presumably, the tunnels would be replaced with a proper labyrinth once the basic operations were all up and running and the occupants had time.

Of course, we weren't going to let things get that far.

We were led down three levels. Four. Five. Occasionally, we ran into more taxxons, some smelling of hives I recognised but most not. Anybody we made any move towards surrendered instantly.

“Is anybody else feeling like this might be a trap?” I asked quietly.

“'Might be'? The guards of the place that performed such appalling sneak attacks on two hives are suddenly playing nice and surrendering to a pathetically small force and leading them straight through their hive without argument, and you're wondering if this 'might be' a trap?” Leesha asked. “Better question: what do we do now?”

“I was sort of hoping to kill some enemies,” I admitted. “But they keep surrendering.”

“Yeah, all of this unhindered cooperation is sort of putting a damper on our plans, huh.”

I felt somewhat foolish, carrying an acid-spitting weapon through a hive of people who looked neither scared nor like they wanted to engage me. An invading force – a _winning_ invading force – shouldn't have to feel foolish.

“This is somewhat surreal,” Theph added. “I admit that I expected some resistance. Fatal resistance.”

“Yeah, well, welcome to a Sethril-included suicide run,” I grumbled. “You never die when you charge in expecting to.”

“If you're expecting your luck to hold on that forever because it has so far then that logical fallacy will eventually kill you,” Theph pointed out.

“Oh no, I'm gonna somehow keep surviving suicide runs. I just know it. When I die, it'll be something random and understated, like eating infected moss or getting trampled in the mother pit.”

Leesha, unlike the rest of us, seemed to remember that we actually had a mission. “Show us the acid for the brightiron field,” they demanded. “It's going to be deactivated.”

“It's already been deactivated,” a very familiar voice behind us said. “It'd be a bit difficult to welcome the soldiers in otherwise.”

That voice... it was a voice I hadn't heard in a long time, but one I would never forget. I could remember its tone and timbre perfectly, joking about crop grazing, making pointed remarks about our elders, and stating, on no uncertain terms, the desire to be a tunnel racer.

With chill dread in my gut, I turned to face it.

“Hello, Sethril,” Klesth said nervously. “I guess I owe you a bit of an explanation.”


	41. Chapter 41

Klesth had changed a fair bit. Aged. But my old friend was unmistakeable.

“A bit of an explanation?!” I hissed, rushing straight toward them. I was prepared to lock teeth, but Klesth didn't move, either to engage or to flinch away; I stopped mere claw spans before contact, at somewhat of a loss. “You... you died, you... you think you owe me _an explanation_?! That's all?!”

“It's probably a start,” Klesth said calmly. “And for the record, I'm extremely glad to see with my own eyes that you're okay. Although, what happened to your right side?”

“The fight _you_ died in happened.” I didn't even try to hide the venom in my voice.

“I wanted you to come with me,” Klesth said sadly. “I tried to talk you in, but every time I even mentioned leaving the hive...”

“So you just abandoned us?!”

“Says the Root Spider defector.”

“Oh right, because defecting to an ally in an effort to protect both hives is definitely the same as faking your own death, leaving your friends and hivemates to try to cope with their grief while endangering their lives by mutually framing them and a totally innocent hive for a completely pointless attack that also, might I add, kills several of your hivemates including one of your best friend's trainees and almost your best friend... am I leaving anything out? I have got this sequence of events correct, yes?”

“Close enough,” Klesth said. “We did frame the Easten Dancers and Root Spiders, yes, and we did do some damage to both hives. But you were never meant to be in danger. I insisted on waiting until we were adults specifically so you wouldn't be on guard duty, and wouldn't be down in those tunnels fighting.”

“Oh, well that's alright then. It's a good thing that you put in some effort to only kill children.”

“You're not... okay, look, I understand why you're so upset – ”

“Do you, Klesth? Do you really? Have you ever had your best friend die and spent cycles trying to avenge them only to have it turn out that they were faking their death and were actually a traitor who was involved in the slaughter of countless hivemates?”

“I did hear that you'd died in the attack. Until you turned up again, I was...”

“What, you're going to explain to me how it felt to have your best friend die, huh? If you know what that feels like, and you _still let me keep thinking you were dead_ – ”

“If you would stop going on about the fake death and the body count, them perhaps I could explain the reasons behind it.”

“Oh, yeah, I'm sure that's going to make everything all better. I could kill you, you know. I probably will.”

“Perhaps you should do it after you learn the details of the situation?”

“Fine. Talk.”

“Will you allow me to show you something?”

“... Fine.”

I followed Klesth down yet another tunnel in silence. I still hadn't completely accepted that they were alive. _Alive._ And an enemy. Definitely an enemy.

We took a couple more turns, then opened into a cavern. A very, very large cavern.

On the floor of the cavern was the center of a living net, the radiating tendrils all young and pink despite the center's great size. The mother pit inside was empty.

“The living net was almost dead when we found it,” Klesth said gently. “We've only just begun to regrow the tunnels. But with care, it'll be back to full strength in time.

The center of the living net sat on smooth stone, but the actual walls of the cavern were soil. They didn't fall in because of the vast root network burrowing through them. Roots hung in long, unknotted tendrils from the walls and roof; the basis of several thought patterns had been woven into them, forming a framework on which future thoughts could be built, but the majority of the space was open and unused. Fine threads of shaped metal were woven into the roots and stretched down to the living net, gleaming in the living net's red glow.

“You've woven your Hivenet into your living net,” I said once I comprehended what I was seeing.

“We call it the Living Hive,” Klesth said affectionately. “The living net can be commanded directly from the Hivenet, and the Hivenet can receive information from the living net. They are connected into a single control center for the hive.”

“You can't... you can't do that,” I said. “You're putting your Hivenet in danger, nobody would ever – ” but then, nobody would ever deliberately attack a Hivenet... “You're using your Hivenet as a shield! You're gambling that nobody would want to endanger it by attacking your living net! You can't do that! You can't put a Hivenet in that kind of danger!”

“Believe it or not, that isn't the intention,” Klesth assured me. “The Hivenet is in no danger. No army could get through the brightiron field without us allowing it.”

“You're allowing an army to come through it right now,” I pointed out.

“Yes. And they won't attack the living net. They won't need to. Sethril, have you ever thought about the concessions that we make for security?”

“Huh?”

“Like the fact that nobody ever makes a Living Hive. It's so superior to keeping the Hivenet and living net separate; you wouldn't believe the advantages gained from communication between the two, from anybody in the Hivenet being able to program the living net and from the living net being able to talk to the Hivenet. But nobody does it, in case of attack. We waste so much space on security measures, in case of attack. We avoid each other, don't trade information, don't trade technology – in case of attack.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I did notice how a whole bunch of invaders coming up from the ocean hurt us. That was a pretty damaging attack.”

“We hang on. We always have, every single hive, for all of known history. We grow enough food for another tide cycle, protect ourselves for a little longer... can you imagine what we could achieve if we looked beyond the survival of our own hive for another cycle?”

“What do you mean?”

“That weapon you're carrying. Which hive invented it?”

“Uh... it's based on Giand Foreclaw metal-shaping technology combined with Eastern Dancer acid concentrates. The pumping system is Eastern Moss, but the Root Spiders assembled it into a single unit.”

“Could any one hive have done it?”

“One hive wouldn't have needed to. We invented it to deal with you.”

“There are plenty of things that we don't need to do; at least, not immediately. Have you ever seen the roof of the dome that covers the aboveground world? Analysed the source of daylight?”

“No...”

“Me neither. Nobody has.”

“Aren't there more important things to do?”

“What, like survive another cycle?”

“Survival is sort of important.”

“Is that all we can accomplish, though?”

“Apparently not; I mean, your little hive here is pretty good at stopping people from surviving. I hope you realised that Phaleth died on your brightiron field trying to get here. I suppose you don't care about Phaleth either, though.”

Klesth was silent for a moment. “Phaleth. That is unfortunate. But Sethril, I've seen friends tear each other apart in fits of madness. So have you.”

“In hunger! That's different!”

“Their friends are still dead.”

“Are you seriously comparing the loss of control of a breeding taxxon with deliberately attacking a hive and surrounding your own with a field of death? You guys did this on purpose! But the hunger can't be helped!”

“Why not?”

“What?”

“Why can't it be helped?”

“Do... do you know how much food it would take to properly feed a breeding taxxon?”

“No. Do you?”

I had nothing to say to that.

“It seems like ignoring those sorts of problems kills our friends as much as actually attacking our friends.”

“Well I'm sorry that we can't solve all the problems in the world, Klesth.”

“That's where we disagree. That's the point. Why can't we? We all sit in our own little hives, not trusting one another, not working together... thinking about the next tide cycle, about the taxxons in our immediate vicinity, and no farther than that. Yet you carry in your claws the evidence of what we can accomplish by working together towards a greater goal.”

“That greater goal was to kill you,” I pointed out.

“It doesn't matter what the goal was. What if we made it a goal to explore the sky? To end the breeding hunger? There are dozens of things we could accomplish, or at least try to accomplish, by working together. But we don't. We put them off, we move them forward. Someday we'll explore the sky, but for now there's a harvest. Someday we'll learn what causes egg rot and destroy it, but for now there are tunnel repairs. We can't streamline hive entrance, it's a security risk. And these things _never happen_. We achieve exactly what's necessary at any given time and not one bit more. These problems kill us, Sethril. They have for generations, for as long as Hivenet recorded memory, and we just put up with it because that's the way it's always been. Attack from the ocean? That's new, so those deaths matter. Torn apart by your best friend? Well, that's always happened, so those deaths don't.”

“It would've been more reasonable to discuss this in the Hivenet than to fake your own death, desert, and kill a whole lot of people, you know.”

“I did discuss this in the Hivenet. We all did.”

“I followed everything you did in the Hivenet. You never...”

“You followed everything I said to you in the Hivenet,” Klesth corrected gently. “You never followed the tunnel racing discussion, did you?”

“Well... no. I skipped those.”

“You also skipped the debates on knowledge expansion and inter-hive politics.”

“I never knew you were having those.”

“You never looked, and you never listened when I brought them up. It's not important. We don't need to have the same goals and interests.”

“Yeah, that's a good thing. Because everything you're saying is just a little bit crazy right now.”

“You've always been a farmer at heart, Sethril. Let me put this in a way that you can understand. Way back when we were barely beyond being hatchlings, a bigger, wiser taxxon lead us through the crop tunnels and explained how they worked. The nest is constructed into three layers – the soil layer, the layer of nontidal stone, and the intertidal stone layer. The tide comes in and is absorbed into the stone of the intertidal layer. The tide grows out, we clean up the intertidal layer and plant our crops. The moss needs the stone to anchor itself in an

d the nutrients in the water to grow, but when the tide comes back in, it dissolves the moss left behind and its shells become more stone.”

“Yes, I know,” I said impatiently. “What of it?”

But Klesth refused to be rushed. “The tide, though, eats away at the stone over time. Being a farmer is about more than just supplying food for the hive. It's about growing the hive itself, ensuring the strength and integrity of the intertidal layer for cycles to come. A failed crop doesn't just mean a cycle of hunger – it means weaker stone for the next nontidal season, and the next. It's a big responsibility.” Klesth had lapsed into supervisor speech; I'd heard that sort of explanation before. I'd given that sort of explanation before.

“I'm not a hatchling, Klesth. You can skip this part.”

“Okay, then let me get to the big question. If stone is grown from mos and moss is grown from the tide... then where did the nontidal layer of stone come from?”


	42. Chapter 42

“It's a simple enough question,” Klesth repeated. “Where does the nontidal layer of stone in a hive come from?”

“Presumably, the same place as the intertidal layer,” I said. “The native mosses that are in the area before they're eliminated to make room for more edible moss. Except...”

“Except that those mosses need the tides, too,” Klesth finished. “Native or domesticated, stone doesn't grow without tidewater. We dug shafts in non-stone areas for the hive attacks. The soil layers were fine, but between the soil and the ocean...”

“Is just a void,” I finished. “I read it in our Hivenet.”

“Right. The bottom of the soil is all fused into unminable stone, probably by acidic tide waters long in the past. We were lucky to find cracks. But then there's just nothing, all the way down to the water.”

“The tides don't reach high enough to fuse soil into anything,” I said. “I'm pretty sure the stone must be something else.”

“I know tide patterns when I see them, Sethril. The tides don't rise high enough to build nontidal stone, either. So how does it get there?”

“I... I don't...”

“I checked the tide records as far back as I could, in the Eastern Dancer Hive. The problem with Hivenets is that they have a very limited readable memory. Eventually, everything is covered in bark and soil and fresh knots. But from what I saw... the tide levels at hightide are going down over time. Very, very slowly.”

“Could be natural fluctuation,” I muttered. “The hive would know otherwise. They'd be doing something.”

“You'd think so, wouldn't you? And yet, the nontidal layer is... what, about four or five times the size of the intertidal layer? What happens if the tides keep going down?”

“You should've mentioned this in the Hivenet.”

“I did. Nobody paid all that much attention. And I spoke to Root Spiders, and Giant Foreclaws, who had also noticed and mentioned it. And if people from three different hives in this area alone noticed it now, we can be sure that it's been noticed before. But nobody cares, Sethril. It's just not as pressing as the next crop, or the next tunnel extension, or the next tunnel racing event. Our very livelihood gets pulled away from us very, very slowly, and because no individual generation sees any change, nobody wants to do anything about it. But in one or two thousand generations, when there's no tide any more... those taxxons are going to wonder why their ancestors, who saw this problem coming, never did anything. We have to do something; about this, about every other problem that persists in our hives that we just accept as a part of life. Our initial plan was to pool our voices together in a single location, to become a force to get something done.”

I remembered the doctored messages I'd found so many tide cycles ago. Klesth's not-quite-casual voice. 'They say the Root Spider Hive always has plenty of food...'

“The Root Spider Hive,” I said slowly. “You wanted to all migrate to the Root Spider Hive and... memetically overwhelm the Hivenet. Our population is the lowest, we would've been your best chance.”

“Indeed. But we quickly realised that it wouldn't be enough. I mean, a hive needs to feed itself, needs to defend itself – how much time would the smallest hive really have to spare for such things? We needed a proper collaboration. A system where everyone could work together. And then, one of our members stumbled upon this. It's an old hive, abandoned a long time ago. The records in the Hivenet are too overgrown with bark to read at all; we had to start from scratch. We have no idea who was here before us, but they left the roots of a hive tree and a living net and a labyrinth at the entrance. We got rid of the labyrinth, wired together the Living Hive, and made it home.”

“And the crop tunnels?”

“Let me show you.”


	43. Chapter 43

“Watch your step,” Klesth warned as we descended through the nontidal layer of stone. “Falling through here could be a death sentence.” The stone was of reasonable strength until we reached the bottom couple of layers, where it had clearly not been maintained to compensate for acid damage for a very long time.

“Look down,” Klesth said as we neared the bottom, indicating a hole in the tunnel floor.

I didn't have to look very hard. The glow of stone beneath was entirely absent.

“The effect of a very long period of neglect,” Klesth said sadly. “This place has been abandoned long enough for the crop tunnels to vanish entirely.”

“Then it's useless,” I said. But even I knew that wasn't true. Already, I was mentally merging Root Spider and Eastern Dancer farming techniques, trying to figure out how to regrow crop tunnels. If the Eastern Moss pumping methods used in my weapon could supply moisture to the nontidal layer...

Klesth didn't even bother calling out my obvious lie. Instead they said, “I can't help but think – if we're right, and the tides are lowering... if all of this was once crop tunnels... well, with five or six times the amount of cropland and actual living space limited to the soil layer, that's a much better food/population ratio than any modern hive could ever expect.”

“And?”

“So do you think that maybe conditions like that might be able to feed a breeding adult population? That the problems we have now are symptoms of a severe food shortage that snuck up so gradually, that stayed for so long, that we've just assumed that they were a normal part of life, and not thought to do anything about them?”

“You just did the whole 'trying to justify all the death' speech, no need to do it again.”

“I really am sorry about all this. I wanted you to come with me, to be part of this. And... well, I guess you were part of it anyway. But still.”

“I can't forgive you for this, Klesth.”

“I wouldn't ask you to. I know I lost you when I left. But for what it's worth, I'm extremely glad that you're still alive.”

“This... what you're trying to do. It won't work.”

“Really? So there isn't an army sourced and armed by four separate hives marching our way as we speak?”

“A temporary alliance.”

“Why?”

“Huh?”

“Why temporary?”

“Because any time now they're going to be here to crush you and your miserable little hive.”

“Really? I wonder what they'll do with it then. A lovely little hive in the middle of nowhere. It needs a little work, certainly, but it does have the best defensive capabilities of any hive ever known – a nice thick brightiron barrier. I wonder which hive in the approaching army will claim this as their own? And why the other hives would let them?”

“They'll just... it'll just be abandoned again. Nobody will claim it.”

“Such a waste. You sure all those people can walk away? After all, they came all the way here to capture this place...” Klesth paused, and I could feel why; a sudden increase in vibration in the stone. “That must be them now.”

I gestured with my weapon. “I'm going up to meet them. And you're coming with me.”

“Good. That'll save me having to find somebody else to surrender to.”


	44. Chapter 44

Our army poured into the tunnels, organised and armed. Every enemy they encountered surrendered immediately.

It wasn't a fight. It was a game of 'round up all the prisoners'. Except that wasn't a challenge either, because nobody even tried to flee.

The inhabitants of the new hive didn't resist or keep any secrets. They happily explained their history, actions and reasoning to anybody who asked, as easily as Klesth had to me.

The whole thing was somewhat irritating.

“You don't get to win,” I told Klesth. “Not like this.”

“Winning? Who won anything? You successfully invaded our hive.”

“You drew us here on purpose! That's what the whole attack on Root Spider and Eastern Dancer was about, wasn't it? You forced us to build a nice big army and drew it up here. I bet you even let that messenger go to help us find you!”

“Would you prefer wandering aimlessly around the open landscape for awhile? Instead you're here, capturing our hive. A good job for everyone.”

“You can't use surrender as a combat tactic!”

“What combat? Our surrender is sincere.”

“It was your plan from the start.”

“You say that like it's a new concept.”

I wasn't the only one thrown off by the complete lack of resistance. The army had arrived looking for vengeance, looking to put down a dangerous enemy, only to find that there was nobody left to attack. We could kill a whole bunch of prisoners, but why waste a perfectly good resource? We could disassemble the Hivenet and move its patterns carefully into our own hives, but... why?

As Klesth had predicted, nobody was really sure what to do with the hive, now that we'd captured it. It was small and needed a lot of work, but it had potential. And yet we couldn't just let the current population continue; they were too dangerous. No hive was willing to let any other hive take responsibility for the place; the brightiron field was just too good a weapon to put in the claws of another hive now that we'd captured it.

It was a five-way stalemate with nobody really sure what they wanted out of the deal, except our prisoners. And what they wanted was apparently to surrender and hand over all their resources without conditions or considerations.

“We could disassemble the defenses,” somebody pointed out, “if they're such a big deal. Then we could simply nominate a local hive to oversee – ”

“And that local hive will be yours, I suppose?” another interrupted. “Pulling up all that brightiron is more trouble than it's worth. Besides, we captured this place together.”

“Then why not run it together?” I asked slowly.

“What do you mean?”

“I... I don't know. I guess... well, if every hive were to leave as many people in this one as they wanted...”

“You mean defect, right? You mean letting these tunnel mites go and bolstering their ranks with defectors?”

I guess that was what I meant. But it sounded like a terrible idea when put like that. “I don't mean... I don't mean people giving up their own hives. I guess... well...”

“If I may say something?” Klesth spoke up.

“Go ahead,” one of the soldiers prompted.

“It seems to me that everybody here is happy to divvy up the resources of our hive, and the only issue is the fact that some of these resources are located in a way that makes them functionally indivisible.”

“And...?”

“Why not leave them where they are? Make the hive common property of the four hives that conquered it?”

There was silence for a moment.

“Like a... secondary hive?” somebody eventually asked. “But a _shared_ secondary hive?”

“Certainly, if that's how you want to think of it. Of course, it must be recognised that some of the conquerors are rather closer than others, which may create a... lopsided influence. I propose extending the living net of this hive under the soil, toward the other hives. We can set entrances to this living net reasonably close to the owner hives, or at least as close as the hives are comfortable with, without compromising their security. Our Living Hive setup allows for control of the living net via the Hivenet without speciality training, so the locals of all hives can easily control living net access to their own.”

“You can't extend tunnels of the living net that far out of the actual hive. It's a security risk.”

“How? The living tunnels are deep underground and travel through territory almost exclusively travelled by members of the four owner hives. Who's going to attack it? And if somebody did want to, wouldn't it be easier to come all this way on foot than to dig randomly around the wilderness looking for buried living tunnels?” Klesth spoke in the tone of one who had considered every obvious rebuttal to their points and rehearsed a counterpoint to each. I wondered how many members of this hive had been trained in this speech.

But trained or not, nobody could come up with a good reason not to do it. After all, even if an attacker did somehow find a living tunnel and manage to convince it to let them into the hive... so what? Was there any reason not to add more owner hives?

It was decided that information received from Tephesh the Giant Foreclaw messenger was vital enough to the mission to count the Giant Foreclaw Hive among the conquerors and offer them inclusion in the spoils. I think this was done more to avoid future conflicts than out of any actual appreciation, but nevertheless, the appropriate messengers were sent.

The prisoners were nominally divided among the conquering hives, but almost all of them were left in the new hive to repair it and grow out the living tunnels. It seemed wrong to give the shared hive a name and identity of its own, so we mostly took to calling it the Living Hive, after its effective but stupid Hivenet setup. The mother pit, of course, was banned from use. There would be no native inhabitants of the Living Hive. It belonged to everybody, and to nobody. The Hivenet itself was tangled and knotted with the thoughts of every owner hive, some new and some partial copies of our own individual Hivenets.

I stayed behind in the Living Hive, too. I didn't want anything to do with Klesth and tried to avoid them as much as possible, but the stone needed serious attention. The bottom of the nontidal layer needed to be repaired and strengthened before the intertidal layer could be regrown. I called my farming partner, Ephesh, up to the hive, and was rather surprised when they actually showed up. I guess that for them too, it was too big a job to resist.

I wasn't looking forward to introducing Ephesh to Klesth, the dead-but-actually-alive-and-treacherous friend I'd talked up so much before learning the truth. Klesth didn't seem keen on the introduction either, and left for the Giant Foreclaw Hive a couple of crests before Ephesh arrived. Although that may also have been because Sheeyeth arrived at the same time as Ephesh. I honestly wasn't sure whether, if given the chance, Sheeyeth would simply kill Klesth. It was a distinct possibility.

The living net was extended towards each owner hive as promised, making it easy to bypass the brightiron field and access the Living Hive. Other nearby hives were brought into the joint ownership deal, mostly to avoid being attacked by them – we were soon joined by Great Fliers, as well as a few other hives I'd never heard of. The Living Hive, with its shared Hivenet, became a hub for negotiation and diplomacy, and _de facto_ neutral ground for anybody wanting to engage in such activities. The stretched-out living net made travel between hives so much safer and easier, and trade between the hives increased. So much interaction between hives allowed more strong inter-hive friendships to develop, further easing negotiation and trade.

After everything, it galled me that the world allowed Klesth and the other hive-attacking traitors to be right.

I never got to work on the lowest levels of the Living Hive crop tunnels. Growing an intertidal layer was a long process, and my age caught up with me before we got down that far. By the time I became and elder, the right side of my body barely moved at all; weaving the Hivenet was a long, difficult task. The Living Hive was set up so that communicating directly with the living net could contribute as much as weaving, at least temporarily, but many of my legs were too stiff for that as well. Leesha the Tallshard diplomat was quite mature by then, about halfway to elder, and sometimes helped me to read or weave the Living Hive. Leesha had a real talent for networks and had traded in hands-on diplomacy for organising living net routes long ago, and thus was usually present in the hub of the living hive, instructing trainees on living net programming via weave.

We did eventually go to see the roof of the cavern that the aboveground world was in. Not me personally, of course; younger, healthier taxxons. After many cycles of advancing brightiron and metal-shaping technology we learned to build high above the ground instead of just dig beneath it. We began building above the Tallshard Hive, who had copious metal deposits in their tunnels, although we still needed to move excess metals from every other hive to meet demand. There were more than a dozen joint owners of the Living Hive by that point, so the metal supply was steady, and with it, we built a spire that reached for the world's roof and its mysterious moving light.

At a certain height, it became difficult to breathe and the air became very cold. We had to halt production while we built special shells for our explorers to protect them. Temperature regulation was a particularly difficult task. I was pretty sure I would die before the project was completed.

Except there was little to die of. I rarely moved beyond the Hivenet of the Living Hive any more, trying to keep up with current events in my slow, determined way. As with all elders, my main contribution to the hive – my own as well as the Living Hive – was sharing wisdom, instructing others on the difficult intricacies of farming. I didn't even get to the mother pit in breeding season any more. If I did, I would've died immediately, torn apart by younger, more agile claws and mouths. Every tide cycle, I wondered if I should just go for it, just bolt for the center of the mother pit and cut myself open and become a mother. But even with the living net shaving seven eighths off the journey, I was pretty sure that travelling back to the Root Spider Hive was beyond my capabilities.

So I did live long enough to read what was perhaps the most shocking revelation I had ever read in any Hivenet – the taxxons who reached the sky came back to explain that it didn't exist. That in itself wasn't the shocking part – it changed one's perspective on the entire world, certainly, but for somebody of my age it had very little real relevance. The cavern of the aboveground world was so large as to possibly be infinite. Fair enough. I left it to the younger taxxons to develop new methods of looking into the infinite cavern as far as they could, to develop models of how things moved and how gravity was (apparently) variable based on distances from things.

No, what was shocking was when we discovered that not only was the cavern apparently infinite with no detectable walls or roof, but that taxxons weren't the only people living in it.

 


	45. Chapter 45

“Slow down,” Leesha said. “You saw what, exactly?”

The three young explorers skittered nervously. The one that they seemed to have elected as their spokesperson, whose name was Alrish, stepped forward.

We were meeting in a small chamber in the Living Hive, where every immediately available elder and several of the committee responsible for exploring the infinite cavern had gathered to hear the explorers' news. Leesha's presence wasn't technically relevant, but their status as my unofficial aide was well-known, and nobody questioned it.

“There are beasts up there,” Alrish said. “Sort of.”

“Right,” I said expectantly. That was interesting, but not necessarily unexpected. We already knew that fliers travelled the skies; there was no reason that beasts shouldn't travel even higher, up where the air was thin and cold.

“We were up in one of the floating pods that move above the air, the new ones? And we encountered them. They... they attacked us. They were in shaped metal pods.”

“Beasts? Using shaped metal?” Kaleth, a warrior elder, perked up at that. “You're certain?”

“Yes. More intricate than ours, with all kinds of... well, when we won, we had a look, there were metal weaves to connect things to other things, kind of like our connections between the Hivenet and the living net? And we found... Fess, do you have it?”

Another of the young explorers nervously stepped forward and held out what looked like a small metal egg. “We didn't mean to,” they whimpered. “But we were fighting, and...”

Leesha took the metal egg carefully in their primary claws and inspected it. The surface was a little uneven, I noticed; made of metal plates fused together. “Oh, dear,” Leesha muttered.

“What?” another elder asked impatiently. “What is it?”

Leesha's claws moved and twisted on the surface, pressing certain points on apparent instinct. “Some of my trainees were designing an encryption system that looks a little like this... much bigger and less, well, metal, but...” several parts of the metal shell fell away, revealing strange crystal beneath through which light moved in long, slow threads. “Oh, dear. This is worryingly familiar.”

“I've never seen anything like it in my life,” I noted. “I couldn't even guess as to what kind of crystal that is. And who shapes metal into thin eggshells?”

“Ignore the appearance, the design. Look at the network.” Leesha held the device higher, so the whole room could see it, although for anybody not standing right next to it it must have looked like a confusing mix of metal and shimmering crystal.

“It's a Hivenet,” Leesha explained.


	46. Chapter 46

“You killed a Hivenet?!” somebody exclaimed, right as somebody else said, “Only taxxons make Hivenets!”

“You fought taxxons?” I asked. “Up high in the infinite cavern? And they were better equipped than us?” That could be a serious problem... aggressive taxxons, with better technology...

“They weren't taxxons,” Alrish said. “They were skinny, and they had almost no legs. And they couldn't talk. They made weird harsh sounds with clicks and hardly any sibilants, like beasts.”

“But they had a Hivenet,” I said slowly. “And shaped metal. Not taxxons, but not beasts. Thinking beings that are different to us. Where did they come from?”

“Given the apparently infinite size of the cavern, could be anywhere,” another elder said. “I think the more immediate question here is, just how upset do you think the rest of them are going to be with us when they learn that we killed a Hivenet?”

“We didn't mean to! We didn't know!”

“I know, I know,” I said gently, trying not to let my own panic show. The army that we'd brought down upon the Living Hive in united hatred for their attack tactics was nothing compared to the response that killing a Hivenet would bring. It was the ultimate sin.

“It's not dead,” Leesha said suddenly.

“It's not?” Alrish asked. “But we tore it out of their metal thing...”

“Well, apparently all the important parts are on the inside. It's... almost dormant, I think? But the light moving in here is moving with _order_. I just wish I could interpret it. It won't survive forever like this, though.”

“Can you save it?” somebody asked.

“I don't know. I doubt very much that we could easily interpret the information. This is a level of cryptography that one taxxon brain can't handle. If my trainees and I can use the Living Hive as a decrypter, then maybe.”

We all looked at each other. Suddenly cordoning off large sections of the Living Hive to crunch numbers would be a severe inconvenience, but to let a Hivenet simply die in our care...

“Do it,” I said.

The integration of the new Hivenet from the mysterious non-taxxon taxxons was a big project. We got to work right away. Leesha explained to me how there was almost no similar ground to work with – the creators didn't even use knots to tie thoughts.

“It's more like the thought patterns in the living net,” my aide explained, apparently not realising that I'd never programmed a living net in my life and in fact could barely instruct it on my desired destination. “There are very few states for any individual piece of information, so it takes a lot of... well, a lot of knots to say anything at all. Imagine of you could only communicate in vague twists instead of entire knots, and if your twists vanished even as they were made.”

“Like weave dancing,” I said.

“I guess? I've never danced.”

“Have any of your trainees? Some weave dancers might help with your decryption.”

Leesha looked at me like I was crazy, but followed up on the suggestion. The team of decrypters grew and the new Hivenet became more integrated into our own. There was no obvious way to actually make it interface with our root-based Hivenet, so we instead tied it into the living net as and intermediary. That produced some results. Our Living Hive, I realised, was growing – an amalgamation of taxxon Hivenet, the thoughts of the living net and the mysterious foreign Hivenet from the sky, with living tunnels spread far out under the land, feeling its breath and sway.

Eventually, the decrypters were able to learn something.

“It's... hungry,” Leesha explained.

“So feed it,” an elder said dismissively. “What does it eat?”

“Brightiron light, we think, but it isn't that. It's hungry for data, or more like... data patterns. I guess the best translations would be... 'user input is required'.”

“So give it some input.”

“We can't. We don't know _how_. We can barely extract information via the living net. I think it needs a kind of template to work with, a more direct interface.”

“More direct than the living net?”

“Yeah. I might... I can't guarantee we're reading this entirely correctly. I might be wrong. But its integrity is fading, it's... withdrawing. We think it needs to process information, but to do that, we have to teach it how to communicate properly with us. Thus the template.”

“What kind of template?”

Leesha answered only reluctantly. “It wants to interface with a living taxxon.”


	47. Chapter 47

Silence reigned for several skips before somebody asked the obvious question.

“How?”

“The Living Hive seems to think that the living net can do it. It's a really complicated model, I couldn't fit the whole thing into my own mind well enough to explain it to you. But it does look sound. I can tell you it's safe for the foreign Hivenet, and for the Living Hive.”

“And for the taxxon?” I asked.

“I don't know. We don't really know anything about... interfacing with taxxon minds. It's not something that's ever come up, or even been possible. That's why we're bringing it to you before we go ahead. I will undergo the procedure myself, but we wanted to present it to as many present as possible.” One of the difficulties of a communally owned hive, especially with the Hivenet mostly dedicated to its decryption tasks, was that making any sort of group decision became very difficult.

“Leesha,” one of the other elders pointed out, “you're the expert on this... this foreign Hivenet.”

“I'm not the only one modelling this information. There are other key players.”

“Exactly – key players. If this attempt kills you and doesn't work?”

“Then the others can continue without me. They have my notes.”

“I'll do it,” I said.

Leesha backed up. “Sethril, it isn't your responsibility to take this sort of risk.”

“Somebody needs to, correct?”

“Yes, but – ”

“Is there any reason that this... template... needs to understand the layout of the Living Hive, or this foreign Hivenet?”

“... No, not as such.”

“Then it makes no sense to risk a key researcher, does it?”

“It's my project, Sethril,” Leesha said quietly. “I'm willing to bear the costs. If we can wake this Hivenet properly, talk to it – ”

I lowered my voice to match. “Then that is an occurrence that we should definitely make sure you are present for. But, Leesha...” I gestured the almost non-responsive right side of my body. “Leesha, my mind is the only thing I have left to offer any hive. I can't even weave the Hivenet properly any more. Do you know what it's like, to not be able to properly commune with a Hivenet? Do you understand how long it's been?” Raising my voice once more, I said, “Are there any objections to using my mind for this template?”

The few objections were quickly silenced. Most of the elders understood.

“Right. Then I suppose that we have work to do.”

It took a few crests to prepare for 'the interface', as the cryptographers called it. At least, they said it did. Even I could tell that they had almost fully prepared before Leesha had come to us. They were sending messengers to the hives among our membership.

They were collecting my friends.

I didn't have that many friends left from before the conquering of the Living Hive. Sheeyeth had died old and well, in the Eastern Dancer mother pit. Klesth was still alive, but the rift between us had never healed. Esheph took time out from their busy schedule overseeing the Root Spider crop tunnels to come up, and it was a mark of how solemn the occasion was that they stood in proximity to Klesth without starting a fight. Esheinth came too; it had been a long time since I'd seen my former trainee, and I think they were shocked at just how little mobility I had left.

I sort of wished that Leesha's cryptographers hadn't put out a message. The last thing I'd wanted was for my old friends to see me now, and pity me.

There were faces I knew and faces I didn't assembled around the Living Hive. Some were friends of mine. Some were there because they expected history to be made. Some just happened to be using the Living Hive at the time. Leesha carefully guided me into a living tunnel, and programmed the destination. I felt the living floor under my feet shiver, although my legs were too stiff to program the commands. I didn't even know what the current codes were.

“What's it the hunters say? 'Good hunting'?” Leesha asked, briefly linking primary claws with me.

“Hey, I'm not the one who has to do all the work here,” I said.

“But you are the one with the dangerous job.”

“In my youth,” I said wryly, “I had somewhat of a reputation for crazy suicidal plans. I'd hate to let that reputation flag now. Good hunting, Leesha.”

“Good hunting, Sethril.”

The wall closed, separated us. The air pressure changed. And I shot forward, down the tunnel.

Down into the core of the living net, where the net was bound to the Hivenet above by strands of dead, shaped metal.

Down into the mother pit.


	48. Chapter 48

Leesha had once explained to me that the Living Hive allowed the biological functions of the living net to be programmed with great precision, both through communication with the living net and through weaving the roots. The mother pit had never been used as a mother pit, at least not since conquering the Living Hive, but I'd occasionally seen taxxons walking about in it, fiddling with something.

I was about to find out why.

The mother pit was filled with a filmy, white fluid. The walls nudged at me and, at their indication, I stepped forward into it. The tough of it tingled, very gently, like the hot light of brightiron moving slowly and diffused.

Under the liquid in the center of the pit, the view obscured by a pink film of living net skin, was the metal egg that the young explorers had brought back from the not-taxxons in the sky. The foreign Hivenet. Fine threads of shaped metal, finer than any I had ever seen, webbed out from it and into the bottom of the mother pit. I stepped forward.

The pit suddenly contracted around me, pushing me onto my belly. I made to get up, but that was a much more difficult task than it had once been. The liquid around me tingled more and some kind of membrane dangling from above moved and caressed my body. The floor of the pit felt sticky. Not, not sticky... malleable. My feet sank into it, only to be gripped tightly so I couldn't move. I couldn't even shift my weight enough to stand up.

I'd walked into the situation willingly, but if I wanted to change my mind, it was far too late.

The floor gripped at my belly, pulling me into it. Something pierced my skin, a sharp prick... then again, in another place... dozens of very fine thorns moving upward through my body. The wounds stung; the fluid burned like acid.

Not thorns, I realised; something much longer, much finer. The shaped metal tendrils. They pushed farther into my body, searching, moving through my middle, down a couple of legs... up toward my head.

I felt them climb up my throat.

I felt...

The mother pit almost seem to hum around me; a gentle, soothing vibration like hatchlings running through tunnels, like microcurrents directing a swim, but all around me at once. I could _see_ that there was nothing about me, but it _felt_ like I was safely nestled in something. The vibrations pulled through my own body, my own brain.

I felt...

Like I should remember something...

Like I should be scared...

What did I need to remember, again?

I couldn't see. But that did that mean? What was 'sight'? To detect shapes outside oneself was easy, with vibrations in the water, bouncing on tunnel walls. Not that I knew what 'shapes' were. There were tunnels, and there was the void above. The ocean above. We had ocean, yes; tunnels and ocean, they were the world. But they ate away at you. The tunnels. They ate away at you with gnawing hunger, the hunger that pulled everything in until you didn't even remember what food was. Food like...

What was inside us, anyway?

How could we move tree roots into knots? Did we have special appendages for that?

Who were 'we'?

And what were 'knots'?

Who was...?

TEMPLATE ESTABLISHED. EXISTING TEMPLATE DATA SUCCESSFULLY DOWNLOADED.

INTERFACE WITH SURROUNDING BIOSYSTEM COMPLETE.

INTERFACE WITH PERIPHERAL ROOT-BASED NETWORK COMPLETE.

INTEGRATING DATA.

DESIGNATION: 'LIVING HIVE'.


End file.
